Events

Jan
19
Fri
2024
Chicago Paglees Show @ South Asia Institute
Jan 19 @ 11:00 AM – Apr 27 @ 6:00 PM
Chicago Paglees Show @ South Asia Institute

South Asia Institute is pleased to announce its new exhibition, “The Paglees: Between Reason and Madness,” in collaboration with the Paglees.

The Paglees is a feminist collective of artists of South Asian origin living across the United States. Paglee or pagli means crazy woman in a number of South Asian languages. The Paglees are: Fawzia Khan, Indrani Nayar-Gall, Monica Jahan Bose, Nirmal Raja, Pallavi Sharma, Renluka Maharaj, and Shelly Bahl.

In their debut exhibition, The Paglees investigate – with fierceness, beauty, and wit – the impact on women of generations of patriarchy, religion, white supremacy, colonialism, violence, capitalism, and environmental plunder.

The title of the exhibition derives from Rosa Parks’ words: “There is just so much hurt, disappointment and oppression one can take. The bubble of life grows larger. The line between reason and madness grows thinner.” (Rosa Parks: Writings, Notes and Statements,1956-58).

Featuring mixed-media works on paper, fabric, and canvas, sculpture, performance, photography, installation, and moving image, The Paglees: Between Reason and Madness, questions and reframes the labeling of non-conforming women as crazy and the marginalization of immigrant women of color. This collective exhibition presents new decolonial narratives that center the reason and wisdom of brown women of the Global South and diaspora, and provide pathways to a creative feminist future. The Paglees believe in working in collaboration with other marginalized communities to build bridges and demand social, environmental, and legal justice for all.

Mar
26
Tue
2024
Community Workshop for SWIMMING @ Marie Reed Elementary School
Mar 26 @ 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Community Workshop for SWIMMING @ Marie Reed Elementary School

Please join us for a community workshop to create SWIMMING, a new public art project that explores the deep and essential connections we have to water as our world faces increased flooding and rising sea levels due to climate change. When installed in June 2024 at the Marie Reed Community & Aquatic Center in Washington DC, SWIMMING will feature a “pool” of art-embellished saris, along with a sound walk, performances, film screenings, and poetry readings.  Artist and climate activist Monica Jahan Bose will lead a poetry and art workshop where we will create poetry and art inspired by the healing properties of water and swimming and inequities in access. SWIMMING is part of Bose’s art and advocacy project Storytelling with Saris.  Started over a decade ago, the project has fostered collaboration with women from Bose’s ancestral island in Bangladesh as well as residents of DC and people around the world.

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.  Register for the event on Eventbrite. 

Curator:  Sarah Tanguy.  Film/livestream: Paris Preston   Music & Sound Design: Sonia Herrero.

Community partners:  Marie Reed Elementary School and Community & Aquatic Center, Adams Morgan Partnership BID, DC Arts Center, Calvary Women’s Services.

This project is funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, film, performance, and installation. Her socially engaged work highlights the intersection of climate, racial, gender, and economic injustice through co-created workshops, art actions, and temporary installations and performances. She has exhibited her work extensively in the US and internationally (22 solo shows, numerous group exhibitions, and more than 25 performances) including solo exhibitions at the Bangladesh National Museum and MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome. Her ongoing decade-long collaborative project STORYTELLING WITH SARIS with women farmers from her ancestral island village has traveled to eight countries and 12 US states, engaging thousands of people. Her work has appeared in the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, Art Asia Pacific, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Honolulu Star Advertiser, the the Japan Times, Prothom Alo and all major newspapers in Bangladesh. The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum has acquired and group of her paintings, saris, and archival materials for its collection.  Monica 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.