Climate Hope Talk & Performance
4200 Campbell Avenue
Arlington
VA
How can you literally draw attention to the issue of climate change? Participate in CLIMATE HOPE by artist Monica Jahan Bose, presented by the Arlington Art Truck and curated by Cynthia Connolly. Join us on Saturday, May 25 for the culminating event at Shirlington Library, an Artist Talk and Community Performance (1:00-2:30 p.m.) in which participants will have the opportunity to add climate pledges, drawings, and poetry to Bangladeshi saris, sew them together in a community sewing circle, and then carry the 80-100 foot-long-massive sari billowing with your messages of hope in a procession through the streets of Shirlington and across the Four Mile Run waterway to Jennie Dean Park. Address for the artist’s talk and performance: Shirlington Library, 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA. In the event of rain, the performance will be inside the library. All ages welcome and no sewing experience needed! Arlington County provides accommodations to individuals with disabilities upon request. Please contact us at least five (5) business days in advance.Phone: 703-228-5993 Email: Jberg@arlingtonva.us
This activation is part of an ongoing project called ‘Storytelling with Saris’ by Monica Jahan Bose. A multilayered collaborative art and advocacy project, it uses woodblock prints on saris, writing, oral history, performance, and film to empower communities in the U.S. and Europe to address climate justice in solidarity with the women of Katakhali Village, Barobaishdia Island, Bangladesh, Bose’s ancestral village situated on the frontlines of climate change. Through performance art and advocacy workshops and climate art actions in the U.S., Bangladesh, and Europe, communities are engaged to take action to fight against the devastation of our planet. Americans are learning about climate change and reducing climate anxiety through the project by writing poetry and making written commitments on saris in an act of cross-border solidarity.
Launching to acclaim in 2018 with a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arlington Art Truck was a finalist for Americans for the Arts’ 2019 Gard Award for Arts and Community Life. The Arlington Art Truck embodies the Arlington Arts mission to revolutionize the traditional model of an arts venue. Packed with digital and traditional creative tools, the “Truck” is a curated mobile toolbox for artists. From April through November, three artists-in-residence hit the streets engaging the public in art projects which are designed to blur the line between participant and presenter.
The community partner for this project is the County’s Eco-Action Arlington with guest partners Climate4Change. Learn how simple things you can do at home can help slow climate change.
About Monica Jahan Bose: 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, temporary installations, and performances. She has exhibited her work extensively in the US and internationally (23 solo shows, five large-scale public art projects, and more than 25 performances) including solo exhibitions at the Bangladesh National Museum and MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome. Her ongoing collaborative art and advocacy project STORYTELLING WITH SARIS (since 2012) 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 Japan Times, the BBC, Prothom Alo, and all major newspapers in Bangladesh. She was an artist delegate to the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, presenting sari installations, workshops, and film screenings. She has a BA in the Practice of Art (Painting) from Wesleyan University, a post-graduate diploma in art from Santiniketan, and a JD from Columbia Law School.
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