University student Emma Sulkowicz was raped on the very first day of her sophomore year (second year) at college in her own dorm bed. Sulkowicz, who is now 23 and in her senior year of Visual Arts at Colombia University, has spent the majority of her college life convincing administrators and authorities that the incident did in fact happen and was carried out by a classmate. In a piece for Time magazine that was published back in May the art student admitted: "Every day, I am afraid to leave my room". Sulkowicz, along with two other students, made assault accusations about the same student had assaulted them, all of which were ignored and the male student remained free to roam the college campus. "Even seeing people who look remotely like my rapist scares me", she continued. "Last semester I was working in the dark room in the photography department. Though my rapist wasn’t in my class, he asked permission from his teacher to come and work in the dark room during my class time. I started crying and hyperventilating. As long as he’s on campus with me, he can continue to harass me". According to New York magazine, the young woman filed a complaint against the University in April for the mistreatment of sexual-assault cases. In this piece to camera titled 'Mattress Performance' or 'Carry That Weight', published by the Columbia Spectator, Sulkowicz tells the camera about her constant struggle with the ordeal and how it inspired her visual arts senior thesis. "I was raped in my own dorm bed, and since then that space has become fraught for me. "And I feel like I've carried the weight of what happened there with me everywhere since then". Sulkowicz vows to carry her dorm room mattress around for the remainder of the time that she and the alleged rapist attend the same college. The student said that her performance art piece contains elements of protest; you can watch the video in full below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9hHZbuYVnU Video via YouTube/Columbia Daily Spectator Lead image via Kristina Budelis for Guardian US Opinion