Three Weeks in May: Speaking Out On Rape, A Political Art Piece was an extended work of performance art and activism by Suzanne Lacy. The piece took place in Los Angeles, California from May 8 to May 24, 1977.
Comprised of political speech, radio interviews, news releases, self-defense demonstrations, speak outs, and art performances, Three Weeks in May represented a synthesis and expansion of the respective avant-garde practices of artists influential to Lacy at the time such as Allan Kaprow. In its active engagement with mass media and what Lacy calls an extended ‘performance structure,’ it is an early demonstration of the transformative potential of socially generative art practices that followed. Three Weeks in May was anchored by a twenty-five foot long map in the City Mall on which Lacy daily stenciled the word RAPE on the location where an attack had been reported to the Los Angeles Police Department. This map was flanked by a second indicating the sites of related resources such as rape prevention training centers and crisis hotlines. The work was extensively covered at that time in three contexts: art, feminist, and mass media.
Other works from 1977: The Bag Lady (1977) The Life and Times of Donaldina Cameron (1977) In Mourning and In Rage (1977) Travels with Mona (1977-1978)