Take Me to the Water Exhibition
1325 W St NW
Washington
DC 20009
“Take Me to the Water” by Monica Jahan Bose. Curated by Beth Ferraro.
Location: Gallery Y, 1325 W St NW, Washington, DC 20009
Opening Reception: Friday, May 2, 2025 from 6-8 pm
Artist’s Talk and Workshop: Saturday, June 21, 2025 from 3-5 pm
Exhibition Dates: May 2-July 11, 2025. Gallery hours: Monday to Friday 7 am – 9 pm, Saturdays & Sundays 7 am – 7 pm.
Curator Statement:
Take Me to the Water is an invitation to listen to the stories Monica Jahan Bose has collected from Katakhali Village and Washington, DC that impact us all. This exhibit speaks to our deep connection to water, the need to protect it, and reminds us of our memories with water.
Bose’s saris and kanthas invoke a floating monument of community action and resilience. She brings together art, activism, and community engagement with each embroidered kantha, sari, poem, song, performance, and work on paper. This immersive experience blends together all these creative practices and highlights her commitment to her long-time collaborative project, Storytelling with Saris, which she began in 2012.
As a curator, I am drawn to how Monica Jahan Bose’s work is rooted in storytelling and the technique with which she engages traditional forms. As a water person, I feel a deep resonance with her incorporation of water as both subject and medium — its symbolism, its urgency, and its connective power across cultures and bodies.
Artist statement:
My work draws on my family’s roots in Katakhali Village, Barobaishdhia Island, which is surrounded by multiple rivers and the Bay of Bengal. After moving to the Washington area, I spent my youth with my friends exploring and playing at the C&O Canal, Great Falls, the Potomac River, and neighborhood pools. I discovered the Talking Heads in the late 1970’s in middle school, and listened to “Take Me to the River” all the time. Water is a recurring theme in my work, speaking to the essentiality of water to life, its healing properties, its centrality in climate change, and its ability to destroy our homes, crops, and heritage.
“Take Me to the Water” presents a new body of work in keeping with my continuing practice. I created a series of canvas paintings called “Water,” starting in 2006. My ongoing socially engaged project Storytelling with Saris works (started in 2012) involves working in collaboration with women from my ancestral island along with residents of DC to create saris, climate pledges, poems, performances, and installations that speak to the intersection of climate, gender, and racial justice. I use the precolonial sari as a symbol of sustainability and renewal. Blue saris represent water, pools, and rivers.
In this exhibition, I have created new work using painting, embroidery, woodblock, and collage, reusing saris from the Storytelling with Saris project, including a faded sari from the pool-shaped installation at the “Swimming”public art project (2024, Marie Reed Plaza and Aquatic Center). The saris from my ongoing work have been used in multiple installations and performances, and worn by Katakhali women. Several used saris were cut, layered in three, and embroidered by me and the Katakhali women to create “kanthas,” a traditional art form where Bangladeshi women recycle old saris to create blankets and wraps. Woodblocks that I have designed have been repeated on the saris, the works on paper, and the kanthas. The exhibition also includes a new performance film “Rising Up.”
“Take Me to the Water” speaks to our deep connection to water, and the need to protect our waters and our planet.
Artist Bio
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 (24 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 decade-long collaborative art and advocacy 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 Japan Times, Prothom Al,o and all major newspapers in Bangladesh. The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum has acquired a collection of her paintings, saris, and archival materials. Monica 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.
Curator Bio
Beth Ferraro is a social art practitioner, curator, photographer, and creative facilitator with a focus on community impact and engagement. She has a BFA in Photography and Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology and worked in journalism as a Photo Editor with several publications, including Newsweek and Flaunt magazines. Following her time in New York City and Australia, she was the Creative Director and Curator at Honfleur Gallery and Vivid Solutions Gallery in Anacostia for seven years. Ferraro has also managed residency programs, artists’ studios, pop-up spaces, and placemaking projects in partnership with communities. Recently, she served as a Cultural & Art Coordinator for an Artisan in Residence pilot program with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the National Museum of Asian Art, working with artisans from Armenia, India, the United Arab Emirates, Mongolia, Tibet, Japan, and China.
Ferraro has worked with numerous organizations on site-specific public art initiatives, community projects, public programs, and art installations including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, Martha’s Table, Department of Energy and Environment, Culture House DC, Building Bridges Across the River at THEARC, Southwest Business Improvement District, Van Alen Institute, City First Foundation, and Washington Project for the Arts.
Since 2019, Ferraro has been the Creative Director & Curator at Gallery Y at the YMCA Anthony Bowen. Ferraro has lived in the District of Columbia since 2004. She is also a yoga teacher for seniors, a swimmer, a paddleboarder, a novice gardener, and an avid bicyclist.
This project is supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
