Group Exhibition, Curated by Nirmal Raja, featuring approximately 30 artists and collaborations, at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
Exhibition dates: October 11 – December 4, 2021

Zoom Panel “Climate Change & Sustainability: Transnational Perspectives in Art,” Oct. 28, 2021, 6:30 p.m. CST (7:30 pm EST), with Monica Jahan Bose, Pamela Longobardi, Jill Sebastian and Liz Bacchuber

Register for October 28 panel here.

See online exhibition content here.

For the exhibition, I created the installation “Shift” featuring five white collaborative saris, rice, dal, and brass containers, along with my soundpiece “Slow” with French musician Nirina Lune.  Shift is an installation that explores the idea of shifting our lifestyles in response to the climate crisis. The 18-foot-long cotton saris are handwoven Bangladeshi pre-colonial garments covered in woodblock prints and drawings and writings by Bose, Bangladeshi women, and people in Europe and the United States. The pandemic, by slowing us down, has highlighted the environmental impacts of our “normal” hectic life of overconsumption, commuting, and travel, leading to the heating of our planet, disruption of agriculture, and food insecurity.  The exhibition also includes the film “Rising Up to Climate Change” a film I co-directed with Leena Jayaswal.

Join this three day symposium online from November 5 to November 7.  All details HERE. Monica will be part of the panel, Making Climate Change Visible, on Saturday November 6 at 2 PM- 3:15 PM ET.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE RECORDED SYMPOSIUM AND PANELS.  

CLICK HERE TO VIEW RECORDING OF MONICA’S PANEL.

Making Climate Change Visible, on Saturday November 6 at 2 PM- 3:15 PM ET.In this session we will hear from a variety of people who produce climate-themed art and/or have the production or use of art at the center of their climate-oriented work. Panelists will explore the interface between art, science, and policy, discussing how their work exists at this interface and charting a course toward even more productive engagement. This conversation will be moderated by Maggie Stogner, Executive Director of the AU Center for Environmental Filmmaking.

Panelists Include:

• Lauren Bon, artist
• Jesse Ribot, scholar of environmental justice and artist
• Monica Jahan Bose, artist, lawyer, activist
• Signe Wilkinson, editorial cartoonist

Monica Jahan Bose
she/her/সে

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. Her solo projects and performance/installations have been presented at such venues as the MACRO Contemporary Art Museum (Rome), the Bangladesh National Museum, Art Asia Miami, Twelve Gates Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum, the DUMBO Arts Festival, (e)merge art fair, SELECT Art Fair Miami Beach, UNESCO (Paris), and the Smithsonian APA Center (Honolulu). She has received numerous grants, awards, and public art commissions.

Bose is the creator of STORYTELLING WITH SARIS, a long-term art and advocacy project with her ancestral village of Katakhali, Bangladesh. She partnered with the International Center for Climate Change and Development to present a climate knowledge sharing and adaptation workshop in Katakhali. Her work has appeared in the Miami Herald, the Washington Post, Art Asia Pacific, the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Honolulu Star Advertiser, the Japan Times, and all major newspapers in Bangladesh. She 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.

We all need to be talking about and seeing climate change. Collaborative art that connects us to others and enhances community is critical to addressing the climate crisis. It can catalyze action on climate by making us feel empowered to make a difference.

Twitter: @monicajahan @storywithsari
Instagram: @mjbose @storywithsari

Please join us for an in-person outdoor planting, poetry, and art workshop with Storytelling with Saris for the new public art project “SUSTAIN”. We will meet at Unity Park, opposite the Line Hotel. The workshop is led by Monica Jahan Bose. It is preferred that everyone be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Please bring your vaccine card or a negative Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours. We will be planting seeds and taking small pots home to grow indoors. Please bring gardening or rubber gloves if you have any. Everyone age 15 or older who joins at least two workshops will receive a small stipend. We will be holding 4-6 workshops, some of which will be in person and others on Zoom. If you have joined prior Storytelling with Saris workshops, please bring your folder of materials — journal, pencil etc. Looking forward to seeing you!

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.

Metro: Woodley Park-Zoo (Red Line); bus 90, 96, 42 and many more.

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

“Dreaming in Green” a film by Leena Jayaswal about the Storytelling with Saris project and its work with Project Create was commissioned by the Smithsonian for its FUTURES exhibition at the Smithsonian Arts & Industries building in Washington, DC. The 3-minute film film is part of a series of 8 short films “The Futures We Dream” shown in a 30-minute loop in the second room with “Futures that Unite” written on the arch, directly behind the main entrance after the central rotunda. Dates from November 21, 2021 to July 6, 2022. Free and open daily from 10 am to 5:30 am (EXCEPT TUESDAYS).  Until 7 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

The final closing party is all day long until 11 pm on July 6, 2022.  Details and registration here.

Please join us for an online poetry and art workshop with Storytelling with Saris. The workshop is led by Monica Jahan Bose. We will have a special guest presentation on indoor gardening by Geo Edwards, an herbalist, artist, and educator currently based in Detroit. We will be working on poetry and art inspired by plants and urban gardening. Our art and poetry will be part of a public art project called SUSTAIN, which will be installed at the Line Hotel DC and Unity Park in June 2022.

Everyone age 15 or older who joins at least two workshops will receive a small stipend. We will be holding 4-6 workshops, some of which will be in person and others on Zoom. If you have joined prior Storytelling with Saris workshops, please have with you your folder of materials — journal, pencil etc. Looking forward to seeing you!

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.

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

Join us for this year’s final farmer’s market at Unity Park and a preview of SUSTAIN, a new public art project exploring climate justice, farming, and food insecurity.  We will be sharing information about this latest Storytelling with Saris community public art project and featuring a short live performance with a 50+ foot sari.   Lead artist Monica Jahan Bose and curator Sarah Tanguy will be present along with several of our project members from Washington DC.   Come join or watch our performance and pick up some fresh produce or an xmas tree at the market!

Do support local growers like Licking Creek Bend Farm, which has been coming to Adams Morgan for over 40 years and also has a farmer’s market in Anacostia.  Read about their work on environmental and social justice in this Pathways article.

SUSTAIN is a collective response to sustainability and the climate crisis featuring community-sourced poetry and art on saris. Made by women farmers from Bose’s ancestral island village in Bangladesh and DC participants of public sari and urban gardening workshops, the saris will wrap around the six grand columns of LINE DC’s façade, and create a welcoming passageway at Unity Park. Other highlights include a soundwalk, poetry slam, and film screenings about sustainable practices and the impacts of climate on agriculture and food security. SUSTAIN marks ten years of the collaborative climate justice project Storytelling with Saris.

ASL will be provided.  Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.

Metro: Woodley Park-Zoo (Red Line); bus 90, 96, 42 and many more.

This project is funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Public Art Building Communities Grant Program.

Please join us for an online poetry and art workshop with Storytelling with Saris. The workshop is led by Monica Jahan Bose. We will have a special guest presentation on indoor gardening by Geo Edwards, an herbalist, artist, and educator currently based in Detroit. We will be working on poetry and art inspired by plants and urban gardening. Our art and poetry will be part of a public art project called SUSTAIN, which will be installed at the Line Hotel DC and Unity Park in June 2022.

Everyone age 15 or older in the DC ara who joins at least two workshops will receive a small stipend. We will be holding 4-6 hybrid workshops, some of which will be in person and others on Zoom. If you have joined prior Storytelling with Saris workshops, please have with you your folder of materials — journal, pencil etc. Looking forward to seeing you!

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.

This project is funded the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Public Art Building Communities Grant Program.

Please join us for an online poetry and art workshop with Storytelling with Saris. The workshop is led by Monica Jahan Bose. We will have a special guest presentation on indoor gardening by Geo Edwards, an herbalist, artist, and educator currently based in Detroit. We will be working on poetry and art inspired by plants and urban gardening. Our art and poetry will be part of a public art project called SUSTAIN, which will be installed at the Line Hotel DC and Unity Park in June 2022.

Everyone age 15 or older in the DC area who joins at least two workshops will receive a small stipend. We will be holding 4-6 workshops, some of which will be in person and others on Zoom. If you have joined prior Storytelling with Saris workshops, please have with you your folder of materials — journal, pencil etc. Looking forward to seeing you!

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.

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

We will be doing daily workshops in Katakhali on sari art, climate justice, climate advocacy writing, recording intangible heritage, and climate photo journalism.  The culmination will be a performance with over a dozen girls on bikes on the banks of the Darchira River.

March 8 is International Women’s Day.  We will be creating climate and food justice saris in solidarity with women farmers of Katakhali Village, Bangladesh.  Please join us for an in person sari art & poetry workshop with Storytelling with Saris. The workshop is led by Monica Jahan Bose. We will be working on poetry and art inspired by plants and urban gardening. Our sari art and poetry will be part of a public art project called SUSTAIN, which will be installed at the Line Hotel DC and Unity Park in June 2022.

Everyone age 15 or older in the DC area who joins at least two workshops will receive a small stipend. We will be holding 4-6 workshops, some of which will be in person and others on Zoom.

Looking forward to seeing you!  In order to allow social distancing and reduce risk of Covid-19 exposure, this workshop is limited to a max of 15 people. You must wear a mask during the workshop. The workshop will be live-streamed and recorded so that more people can be engaged.

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.

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