What Were You Wearing? (WWYW) functions as both an immersive art exhibit and a survivor-led human rights investigation that documents not only the harms of victim-blaming, but the systemic and ongoing consequences of institutional indifference, disbelief, inaction, and blame by some police, prosecutors, judges, first responders, and family court representatives.
Building on the global WWYW movement inspired by the poem “What I Was Wearing,” this exhibit pairs clothing, survivor words, and objects with institutional records, contextual statistics, and publicly available audio/video, including police bodycam footage and evidentiary material that was disregarded or mishandled. The result is a curated archive that confronts cultural normalization of violence against women and exposes how systemic failures enable repeat harm.
Prior WWYW visitors have described the exhibit as “transformative” and “the most powerful exhibit I’ve ever seen.” This iteration builds on earlier versions by focusing on identifying and mapping patterns of institutional complicity, offering the dual experience of an art installation and a documentary investigation. Attendees move at their own pace through a space designed for reflection and reckoning. It offers an unflinching look at the often invisible patterns of systemic failure and the catastrophic impact of disbelief, indifference, and inaction, engaging visitors not as bystanders, but as witnesses.
