Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz says she has carried the weight of her rape with her since 2012.

On Tuesday, she carried that weight in the form of a mattress, as she crossed the stage at her graduation ceremony.

With the help of four friends, Sulkowicz completed a year-long art project which brought attention to how schools address sexual assault on campus.

In September, the visual arts student pledged to carry a mattress with her as long as she was at the same school as the man she said raped her.

She called the school-sanctioned project "Mattress Performance: Carry that Weight."

"I was raped in my own dorm bed, and since then that space has become fraught for me. I feel like I’ve carried the weight of what happened there with me everywhere since then," she told The Columbia Daily Spectator in a September interview.

At the time, she said she expected the project might last only a day, or it might stretch out longer if she and the alleged rapist remained at the school together.

In the end, Sulkowicz carried the mattress for her entire senior year, hauling it to classes around campus.

She was almost barred from bringing it to graduation, when the school sent out a note saying graduates were not allowed to bring large objects into the ceremony, but Sulkowicz was ultimately allowed to cross the stage with her mattress, encouraged by enthusiastic applause.

Sulkowicz says she was assaulted by a classmate in her dorm during her second year of university. According to her, what began as consensual sex became violent and abusive. She eventually reported the incident to the school, and the university held a disciplinary hearing, at which they cleared the accused of any wrongdoing.

Sulkowicz called the hearing flawed, but the man accused of raping her has said he did nothing wrong. He filed a lawsuit against the school last month for allowing what he says is harassment.