Force

FORCE: Upsetting R**e Culture To promote this needed conversation, we create art actions to generate media attention and get millions of people talking.

FORCE: Upsetting R**e Culture is an art activist effort to upset the dominant culture of r**e, and promote a counter-culture of consent. We believe that a more difficult and honest conversation needs to happen in the United States to face the realities of s*xual violence, and we envision a world where s*x is empowering and pleasurable rather than coercive and violent. According to the Huffington P

ost, “FORCE is doing a good and creative job with a hard-to-digest topic, capturing the public imagination with their tactics.”

FORCE is most widely known for their viral panty prank, where they pretended to be Victoria’s Secret promoting consent themed slogans on underwear. More recently, FORCE tricked the internet into believing that Pl***oy had released an updated anti-r**e party school guide dubbed, “The Ultimate Guide to a Consensual Good Time”. They have also received national attention for projecting “RAPE IS RAPE” onto the US Capitol Building and for floating a GIANT poem written by a survivor in the reflecting pool on the national mall. FORCE is led by Hannah Brancato and Rebecca Nagle, creative educators, organizers, and activists in Baltimore, MD.

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The Monument Quilt: a public healing space by and for survivors of r**e and abuse. The Monument Quilt is a crowd-sourced collection of thousands of stories from survivors of r**e and abuse. By stitching our stories together, we are creating and demanding public space to heal. The Monument Quilt is a platform to not only tell our stories, but work together to forever change how Americans respond to r**e. We are creating a new culture where survivors are publicly supported, rather than publicly shamed. Sections of the quilt will be witnessed across the United States through a tour, quilt making workshops, and a historic display in our nation’s capitol. Blanketing over one mile of the National Mall, thousands of fabric squares will be stitched together to spell “NOT ALONE”. The Monument Quilt gives churches, schools, towns and our country clear and accessible steps to support survivors of r**e and abuse when, often, people don’t know where to begin. Through public recognition, the quilt reconnects survivors to their community.

05/23/2026

Please, help us share and support Malena, a victim of an acid attack in Mexico.

Potawatomi woman paints the past, grows the future | We The People A250

05/19/2026

🔥 Don´t miss this article about Nickole L. Keith an incredible artist who created a quilt for The Monument Quilt project and was part of our “We Will Not Be Silent: Art Transforming R**e Culture” at the Stamp Gallery last Novemeber.

Nicole is Food Sovereignty Coordinator by day and an artist by night. Her medium of choice is acrylic on wood panels. As a citizen of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi Tribe, her artwork is powerfully centered around the atrocities of her Indigenous heritage. Nickole’s paintings encourage healing through storytelling. She resides on the Pine Creek Reservation in Fulton, Michigan.

Potawatomi woman paints the past, grows the future | We The People A250 After watching elders die from preventable illness, one Potawatomi woman turned grief into a farm — and her pain into paintings.

05/13/2026

💓 Where is the Quilt Now? Baltimore Museum of Art

To date, 150 of 750 quilts are housed in permanent collections. A huge thank you to the Baltimore Museum of Art, the very first institution to complete the process of adopting pieces of the Monument Quilt. In 2021, after nearly two years of close collaboration, the BMA officially acquired 10 quilts.

In 2022, to celebrate this historic acquisition, we were honored to join the BMA Violet Hour virtual panel. The vital conversation was moderated by Dr. Kalima Young Kal-El Ma Kent(Towson University Assistant Professor & FORCE leadership team member) and featured an incredible lineup:

🧵 Dr. Joan M. E. Gaither, Documentary Story Quilter
🏳️‍⚧️ Monica Stevens – Trans advocate
💜 Mora Fernández, Shanti Flagg, and Hannah Brancato– Co-directors of FORCE

Thank you to everyone who made this collaboration and dialogue possible. Together, we keep stitching our stories into history. 🧵

🌍✨FORCE is dedicated to finding a safe, permanent home for every single piece of the Monument Quilt. We want the world to remember, honor, and witness these powerful stories of survival. Because history shouldn't just be told—it must be seen. 💜

💌 Caring for the Quilt is an act of resistance, so we launched a fundraising campaign to properly care for the 600 quilts, which have now been in storage since June 2019. We need to purchase new bins and shelves and continue paying rent. Any amount is appreciated. https://givebutter.com/monumental-quilt-nzgsxe

✊The memory of this project is more urgent now than ever, and we remain committed to continuing to care for these quilts as carriers of this special history of resistance.

**kICE

https://www.youtube.com/live/IPECv5DsW-g?si=6vzx0wJseH56d0uc

BMA Violet Hour: The Monument Quilt Join us for a virtual panel discussion to commemorate the acquisition of 10 blocks of The Monument Quilt, a project of the Baltimore-based FORCE: Upsetting R...

04/29/2026

💓Archiving the Monument Quilt!

Since 2020, following our 50th and final display of the Monument Quilt on the National Mall, FORCE is archiving the quilt, seeking to place each of the 750 blocks in permanent collections around the world, so that these urgent stories from survivors and our allies can continue to be heard and so that the history and legacy of our efforts can be preserved.

To date, 150 of 750 quilts are housed in permanent collections, including the Baltimore Museum of Art and the National Museum of the American Indian, as well as university archives, including UMBC Special Collections, the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, and even individual collections. More info about each of these acquisitions to come 🤩

FORCE seeks to find a home for every single piece of the Monument Quilt, spreading its expressive power around the world, ensuring a safe, permanent home for each piece of the Quilt, providing opportunities for public viewing, and keeping the power of the project alive and accessible to the world. We want many generations to witness these survivors’ stories.

💌 Caring for the Quilt is an act of resistance, so we launched a fundraising campaign to properly care for the 600 quilts, which have now been in storage since June 2019. We need to purchase new bins and shelves and continue paying rent. Any amount is appreciated https://givebutter.com/monumental-quilt-nzgsxe

✊The memory of this project is more urgent now than ever, and we remain committed to continuing to care for these quilts as carriers of this special history of resistance.

More info about Archiving the MQ here:
https://themonumentquilt.org/archiving-the-monument-quilt/

**kICE

04/25/2026

04/23/2026

❤️ Dear Community,

Since the beginning of this year – the community that co-created the Monument Quilt (MQ) – have been on our minds. Survivors are, once again, in the spotlight. Even when met with public support, scrutiny, and debate about our lived experiences of violence is so painful. Amid ongoing reckonings around Jeffrey Epstein, Cesar Chavez, Donald Trump and so many more every day – including the “r**e academy” CNN report from last week — we continue to witness both the absence of consequences and incomplete attempts at accountability. Centering survivors’ voices on their own terms, as we did and do through the Monument Quilt, remains radical work.

The MQ archiving effort is currently led by Hannah Brancato and Mora Fernández, and want to share updates and an invitation. We write to remind ourselves—and each of you—that this community still exists. Even when we are not as loud as before, and the work looks different now, it continues with the same care and dedication as we always brought. We are still here, and we are still committed to survivors of s*xual violence.

✨ We will start posting from now on to give you more details of all we have been doing. But here is a small glimpse into the amazing work:

🫟 This past fall, Hannah curated the We Will Not Be Silent: Art Transforming R**e Culture at the University of Maryland.

💓 We also continue to archive the Quilt by placing it in dispersed collections. To date, 150 of 750 quilts are housed in the permanent collection of renowned academic and cultural institutions, university archives, grassroots organizations, and amazing individuals.

💌 Caring for the Quilt is an act of resistance, so we are launching a Fundraising campaign to properly care for the 600 quilts, which have now been in storage since June 2019. We need to purchase new bins and shelves and continue paying rent. https://givebutter.com/monumental-quilt-nzgsxe

The memory of this project is more urgent now than ever, and we remain committed to continuing to care for these quilts as carriers of this special history of resistance.

🍉 In solidarity and gratitude,
Hannah and Mora
on behalf of the Monument Quilt

**kICE