Gallery addresses workplace violence

The El Norteño restaurant in downtown Bloomington is now displaying the Bandana Project gallery, which is part of an incentive to end workplace violence and sexual harassment against female farm workers. The gallery is on display from May 22 to July 22.

Elizabeth Lopez, bilingual domestic violence advocate for the Middle Way House, and Leah Fithian, a senior social work intern at Middle Way, organized the Bandana Project in Bloomington. The project launched nationally in 2007.

Lopez and Fithian said they wanted to have the gallery opening coincide with the third Gallerywalk in downtown Bloomington, which started June 1. The walk features nine galleries that are open to the public for special events and festivities on six specific Fridays. Those Fridays include Aug. 3, Oct. 5 and Dec. 7. 

It features white bandanas decorated with words of encouragement. The bandana symbolizes solidarity, since many female farm workers use bandanas to cover their faces in order to ward off attention.

Lopez asked members of the Monroe County Domestic Violence Task Force to participate in the Bandana Project, and use pens, paints and colored pencils to decorate the bandanas with words of encouragement and artwork, according to the City of Bloomington website.

“The Bandana Project is designed to provoke a conversation about workplace sexual violence and sexual harassment against women and men through a public display of white bandanas ‘decorated’ with words of encouragement for victims, motivational statements, and inspirational art,” according to the Middle Way House website.

The Middle Way House website also said the project has branched out to address sexual harassment in a variety of workplace environments. Project sponsors of the Bandana Project hope this will bring attention to the importance of anti-harassment policies in all workplace environments.

— Sarah Boyum