Events
It’s time to celebrate Earth Day all month long! Join us for a planting, poetry, and art workshop at The Nicholson Project’s garden. We will be cleaning and planting the garden with Kendra Hazel, the new Garden Manager at Nicholson. Artist Monica Jahan Bose will lead us in creating poetry and art inspired by the garden. We will have more workshops in the summer with Monica followed by an exhibition and poetry slam at The Nicholson Project in September.
If you have joined prior Storytelling with Saris workshops, please bring with you your folder of materials — journal, pencil etc. Looking forward to seeing you!
Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs. ASL will be provided.
Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, performance, film, and interdisciplinary projects. Her social practice work highlights the intersection of climate, racial, gender, and economic injustice through co-created workshops and temporary public art installations and performances. She is the creator of STORYTELLING WITH SARIS, a long-term art and advocacy project with her ancestral village of Katakhali, Bangladesh. She has a BA in the Practice of Art (Painting) from Wesleyan University, a Diploma in Art from Santiniketan, India, and a JD from Columbia Law School.
Kendra Hazel is the 2023 Garden Manager at The Nicholson Project. She is an herb enthusiast, urban garden educator, and a plant based chef. She studied Health Science at Florida A&M University, has worked with neighborhood community gardens independently and as the Community Garden Spaces manager with City Blossoms, and recently founded Green Things Work where she shares her holistic approach to wellness.
The Nicholson Project is an artist residency program and neighborhood garden in Ward 7’s Fairlawn neighborhood. Its mission is to support, provide opportunities, engage, and amplify artists and creatives from our community and the local artist community—particularly artists of color and those from Ward 7 and 8—while engaging our neighbors through community-based programming. Its vision is to serve as a cultural hub and community anchor celebrating Ward 7’s authentic identity, while infusing new vibrancy into Southeast DC. We hope to inspire others to use similar non-traditional arts and community-centered projects as a pathway toward stronger, more vibrant communities.
This project is supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Image: Planting workshop for Sustain, © 2022 Monica Jahan Bose, photo credit: Paris Preston.
Join us for a planting, poetry, and art workshop at The Nicholson Project’s garden. We will be cleaning and planting the garden with Kendra Hazel, the new Garden Manager at Nicholson. Artist Monica Jahan Bose will lead us in creating poetry and art inspired by the garden. We will have more workshops in the summer with Monica followed by an exhibition and poetry slam at The Nicholson Project in September.
If you have joined prior Storytelling with Saris workshops, please bring with you your folder of materials — journal, pencil etc. Looking forward to seeing you!
Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs. ASL will be provided.
Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, performance, film, and interdisciplinary projects. Her social practice work highlights the intersection of climate, racial, gender, and economic injustice through co-created workshops and temporary public art installations and performances. She is the creator of STORYTELLING WITH SARIS, a long-term art and advocacy project with her ancestral village of Katakhali, Bangladesh. She has a BA in the Practice of Art (Painting) from Wesleyan University, a Diploma in Art from Santiniketan, India, and a JD from Columbia Law School.
Kendra Hazel is the 2023 Garden Manager at The Nicholson Project. She is an herb enthusiast, urban garden educator, and a plant based chef. She studied Health Science at Florida A&M University, has worked with neighborhood community gardens independently and as the Community Garden Spaces manager with City Blossoms, and recently founded Green Things Work where she shares her holistic approach to wellness.
The Nicholson Project is an artist residency program and neighborhood garden in Ward 7’s Fairlawn neighborhood. Its mission is to support, provide opportunities, engage, and amplify artists and creatives from our community and the local artist community—particularly artists of color and those from Ward 7 and 8—while engaging our neighbors through community-based programming. Its vision is to serve as a cultural hub and community anchor celebrating Ward 7’s authentic identity, while infusing new vibrancy into Southeast DC. We hope to inspire others to use similar non-traditional arts and community-centered projects as a pathway toward stronger, more vibrant communities.
This project is supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Image: Planting workshop for Sustain, © 2022 Monica Jahan Bose, photo credit: Paris Preston.
Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist Monica Jahan Bose will lead a hands-on sari workshop with high school students at Georgetown Day School addressing environmental and gender justice. Participants will discuss strategies for climate action and gender justice and draw, paint, and write on a hand-woven cotton sari from Bangladesh. For over ten years, Bose has been co-creating saris with communities as part of her Storytelling with Saris art and advocacy project. The sari will be used in installations and performances and worn by Bangladeshi women. This is a private workshop for students at the school.
Please join me at this exhibition, for which two of my works have been commissioned. Five leading Bangladeshi artists are sending a message to GE and demanding a fossil fuel free future, with a new Boston-based art exhibition titled ‘Electric Bangladesh: Fossil Free Futures’. DETAILS HERE
Through our artwork, we are calling on GE to end its greenwashing – claiming to be green while backing massive fossil gas projects – and instead back clean renewable energy in Bangladesh.
Presented by Climarte and commissioned by Market Forces, the exhibition will run from 1-4 August at the Point Gallery at @CambridgeFoundry in Boston – right around the corner from GE’s new headquarters.
Join us for a short film and a feature length film followed by Q&A with feminist filmmakers/artists Indrani Nayar-Gall and Monica Jahan Bose.
Happy hour starts at 6:30 pm and films start at 7:15 pm
There will be wine and snacks provided but outside food and drink is welcome. Both films are fully captioned.
String of Stories
a film by Indrani Nayar-Gall (72 minutes) presents the ordeals of three women who have been victims of the Devadasi tradition. The nonlinear treatment of the film provides a glimpse into the insidious ways in which the system works, especially how it has ruined their lives. These women, who hail from the least privileged sections of society, have been sacrificed at the altar of this illegal practice. Scarred by their experiences, they find themselves stripped of the fundamental rights to safety and education. Will they be able to rise above it and turn their lives around?
Dreaming In Green
a film by Leena Jayaswal (in collaboration with Monica Jahan Bose) about the Storytelling with Saris
ecofeminist art project. Commissioned by the Smithsonian for the Futures exhibition (3:43 minutes)
Monica Jahan Bose will be participating in the the third annual Women’s Environmental Leadership (WEL) summit taking place from Thursday September 14 through Sunday September 17, 2023, in Washington D.C. The summit is a signature program of The Center for Environmental Justice at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (CEJ). Launched this past Earth Day, the Center builds on the work of the Urban Waterways Project, which for twelve years explored and documented the relationship between urban waterways and their surrounding communities. WEL was launched in 2018 to build capacity for future women environmental leadership. Through summits, community forums, lectures, and oral histories, a national network of environmental leaders and young women have explored the importance of mentorship, various educational and career opportunities, and the multitude of ways in which leadership is enacted. The launch of the Center and the WEL summit are part of our museum’s focus on Our Environment,
Our Future, a year-long celebration of programming which includes the exhibition To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington D.C., and the first cohort of our Environmental Justice Academy. Over the course of the summit, we will welcome attendees for an opening Dinner & Discussion, two days of panels and workshops, and a day of field trips, all designed to empower the next generation with the knowledge, skillsets, and inspiration they need to take the next steps in their personal and professional pathways.
Monica will be a panelist on September 16, for the session, The Arts, Environmental Advocacy, and Activism. Discussion will explore the role of the Arts in environmental advocacy and activism through an exploration of how the environmental experiences of artists inform media and messaging, the various spaces such work can inhabit, and how such engagement serves to make environmental practice more accessible.
Image: This digital artwork by Amir Khadar has been commissioned as a mural by the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum for the exhibit To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C.
Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist Monica Jahan Bose will lead a hands-on sari climate pledge workshop as part of the exhibition To Live and to Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C. Participants will discuss strategies for climate action and draw, paint, and write climate pledges and climate injustice stories on a hand-woven cotton sari in solidarity with women farmers of coastal Bangladesh, who are on the frontlines of climate change. For over ten years, Bose has been co-creating saris with communities as part of her Storytelling with Saris art and advocacy project. The sari will be used in installations and performances and worn by Bangladeshi women, creating a direct physical and emotional connection that links communities together to fight climate injustice.
Excited to be back at GDS for an assembly for the entire high school. I will give an interactive talk and poetry performance!
Thank to the students for inviting me.
-MJB
Also please support our wonderful local bookstore, which is hosting this official event.
https://www.politics-prose.com/noorjahan-bose
NOORJAHAN BOSE – Noorjahan Bose (she/her) is a feminist writer, social worker, and activist, living between the US and Bangladesh. She is the founder of two US-based organizations to empower South Asian women, ASHA (now Ashiyanaa) and Samhati. She has a BA (Honors) in Bangla literature from Dhaka University and a Masters in Social Work from Catholic University in Washington DC. She worked for many years as a social worker with refugees and the elderly at Catholic Charities, with foster children for Prince Georges Country, MD, and with ICU patients at DC General Hospital. She also founded the first Bangla School in the DC area, running it out of her home for more than 10 years.
