STORYTELLING WITH SARIS EARTH DAY 52 CLIMATE ART EVENT

April 22, 2021 11 am – 1 pm EDT, 9 pm Bangladesh, 4 pm London, 5 pm Paris/Rome, 6 pm Athens, 11 pm Bangkok/Manila. Live from Washington DC, Storytelling with Saris celebrates Earth Day 52 through a hybrid event featuring artist Monica Jahan Bose, curator Sarah Tanguy, and climate leader Elizabeth Brandt of Mom’s Clean Air Force. We will discuss the impact of the ten year long Storytelling with Saris project and the upcoming June 2022 SUSTAIN public art installation and work on sari art and concrete actions to address urgent climate and environmental issues. The studio audience will be working on sari art for the SUSTAIN installation, and the online audience will also be able to participate in the discussion and add their voices to the sari.

Storytelling with Saris was launched by Bose ten years ago and continues to highlight stories of climate injustice and resilience from Katakhali Village, Bangladesh to Washington DC, engaging thousands of people around the world through co-creation labs, performances, films, and public art installations.

See it live on Youtube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9CDxIRZgcc

Event Links: http://storytellingwithsaris.com/events/

This project is supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Public Art Building Communities Grant Program, along with community and media partners The Line Hotel, Adams Morgan BID, Mom’s Clean Air Force, We Act Radio, and Boathouse.

About Monica Jahan Bose: Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, performance, film, and interdisciplinary projects. Her socially engaged work highlights the intersection of climate, racial, gender, and economic injustice through co-created workshops and temporary public art installations and performances. Her solo projects and performance/installations have been presented at such venues as the MACRO Contemporary Art Museum (Rome), the Bangladesh National Museum, Art Asia Miami, Twelve Gates Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum, the DUMBO Arts Festival, (e)merge art fair, SELECT Art Fair Miami Beach, UNESCO (Paris), and the Smithsonian APA Center (Honolulu). She has received numerous grants, awards, and public art commissions. She is the creator of STORYTELLING WITH SARIS, a longterm art and advocacy project with her ancestral village of Katakhali, Bangladesh. Her work has appeared in the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, Art Asia Pacific, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Honolulu Star Advertiser, the Japan Times, and all major newspapers in Bangladesh. She has a BA in the Practice of Art (Painting) from Wesleyan University, a post-graduate Diploma in Art from Santiniketan, India, and a JD from Columbia Law School.

About Sarah Tanguy: Washington, DC-based Sarah Tanguy is an independent curator and arts writer, who believes in hands-on, face-to-face collaboration with artists and the power of art to connect with the general public and our lived experience. Beyond generally themed exhibitions and collections, many of her projects have explored the intersection of art with such topics as science, food, tools, and books, inspiring new ways to engage the world around us.

Recent exhibitions include Reveal: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery at the American University Art Museum and Traces at The Kreeger Museum, both Washington, DC; and Synergy Unbound, the last of an ongoing series at the American Center for Physics, College Park, MD. Sarah is the curator for the upcoming SUSTAIN public art project. From 2004-2019, Sarah was a curator for Art in Embassies, U.S. Department of State, where she curated over 100 exhibitions and 12 permanent collections featuring U.S. and host country artists for U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas. The daughter of a U.S. diplomat, Tanguy holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from Georgetown University, and a M.A. in Art History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

About Elizabeth Brandt: Elizabeth Brandt is National Field Manager for Mom’s Clean Air Force. She and Mom’s have been partnering with Storytelling with Saris for several years. As the DC field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force from 2017 to 2019, Elizabeth Brandt fought the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Clean Power Plan, championed the passage of the Clean Energy DC Act, and tirelessly advocated for clean air and children’s health on Capitol Hill. As national field manager, she remains a fixture on the Hill, while managing field staff across the US. Elizabeth’s work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, BBC America, The Hill, and NowThis.

Before working for Moms Clean Air Force, Elizabeth worked in social work and public health in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Elizabeth grew up in the shadow of a copper smelter that covered her neighborhood with arsenic and other chemicals. She is determined to ensure that other families do not experience the devastating impacts that living close to underregulated industrial sites can cause. A mother of two daughters, Elizabeth became increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change after the birth of her first child. Elizabeth holds a master’s degree in social work.