We had such a heartwarming gathering for our fifth climate sari workshop for the Warming Waters Georgetown installation at the Eaton Hotel on March 11, 2020. Given the growing news about the coronavirus, I had emailed participants the night before saying that we will not be hugging or shaking hands and that I would not be providing snacks to share. We spent the first 20 minutes talking about the virus and proper handwashing techniques, which I described in detail. Everyone was encouraged to wash hands and clean up our hands with alcohol and tissues as we worked. Many people seemed upset to not be hugging as we have gotten to be friends over the course of working on these saris. I showed video and images from my recent trip to Katakhali Village, Bangladesh. We worked together to finish three saris that had been started at Katakhali Village. We had several new people join today, and we even had two young toddlers! We talked about the possibility that we might not be able to have further workshops like this if the virus situation is not contained. We discussed the possibility of online workshops or open air workshops to finish off our project. Our public installation is scheduled for the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, April 22, 2020. As of now, our plan is to do a livestream online event on April 22 and reschedule the public event to the summer. Thanks so much for everyone who has worked so hard on this project. There has been poetry, singing, drawing, painting, printmaking, and so much of a sense of community and commitment to act on climate change. Thank you to everyone for making climate pledges too. — Monica Jahan Bose, March 16, 2020

This project was funded by a Public Art Building Communities Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Photo credit: Monica Jahan Bose. All images ©2020 Monica Jahan Bose