Silent Witness Project

Read their stories:

Catherine J.

Denise H.

In 1990, a group of women, upset about the growing number of women in Minnesota being murdered by their partners, joined together with several women’s organizations to form Arts Action Against Domestic Violence. They felt an urgency to do something that would speak out against the escalating domestic violence in their state, something that would commemorate the lives of the 26 women whose lives had been lost in 1990 as a result of domestic violence. They decided to create 26 free-standing, life-sized red wooden figures, each one bearing the name of a woman who once lived, worked, had neighbors, friends, family, children--whose life ended violently at the hands of a husband, ex-husband, partner, or acquaintance. A twenty-seventh figure was added to represent those uncounted women whose murders went unsolved or were erroneously ruled accidental. The organizers called the figures the Silent Witnesses.

On February 18, 1991, more than 500 women met at a church across the street from the Minnesota State Capitol with the newly constructed Witnesses lined up at the front of the sanctuary. The women formed a silent procession escorting the figures single file across the street, up the steps, and into the State Capitol Rotunda for public statements and a press conference. The sheer volume of space the figures occupied spoke of their power... and the loss. The Silent Witness Exhibit was officially launched.

Inspired by the impact of the Exhibit on many lives, a few of the project supporters to set a larger goal, namely the formation of a national initiative dedicated to the elimination of domestic murder, created Silent Witnesses Exhibits in all 50 states. Within one year, as of September 1995, a total of 800 Silent Witnesses had been created representing women who were killed as a result of domestic violence in seventeen states.  As of March of 1997 forty-six states had joined the initiative.