''Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)'' (2014–2015) was a work of
endurance/performance art which
Emma Sulkowicz
Emma Sulkowicz (born October 3, 1992) is an American performance artist and anti-rape activist["Carr ...](_blank)
conducted as a senior thesis during the final year of a
visual arts
The visual arts are Art#Forms, genres, media, and styles, art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as ...
degree at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
in New York City.
[For "endurance performance art", Emma Sulkowicz (September 2, 2014)]
"Emma Sulkowicz: "Carry That Weight"
''Columbia Daily Spectator'', at 2:22 min.
Begun in September 2014, the piece involved Sulkowicz carrying a mattress, of the kind that Columbia uses in its
dorms, around campus. Sulkowicz said the piece would end when a student
Sulkowicz alleged raped her in her dorm room in 2012 was expelled or otherwise left the university.
Sulkowicz carried the mattress until the end of the spring semester, as well as to the graduation ceremony in May 2015.
Student Paul Nungesser, whom Sulkowicz accused, was found not responsible by a university inquiry into the allegations, and police declined to pursue a criminal complaint against him, citing a lack of reasonable suspicion. Nungesser called Sulkowicz's accusation "untrue and unfounded" and called ''Mattress Performance'' an act of bullying.
In 2015, Nungesser filed a lawsuit against the university and several administrators alleging that the school exposed him to gender-based ha