“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.

I St Gallery of DCCAH
200 I Street SE, Washington, DC

Curator: Sarah Gordon

Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 6:00 pm ET
Masks are required

May 9 – July 1, 2022

With social injustice a common theme around the world, we are also currently witnessing the injustices committed against our natural environment. Like our ancestors, we sense nature’s vastness, yet we lack the same respect those indigenous peoples had for nature as a sentient being. We take the Earth’s vastness for granted. What we experience as nature pushing back is nature seeking balance.

With this exhibit, Fragile Beauty, 33 DC artists seek to bring a sense of balance to an array of environmental injustices. Their art and their vision advocate awareness, mindfulness, consciousness, and stewardship, offering pathways towards personal partnership with our planet. They tell their stories with painting, sculpture, prints, photography, and installations. They inform us of both the joyful and the sorrowful, the woeful and the hopeful. Their work will challenge, enlighten, and inform your sense of wonder for exploring the beauty, power, and magnificent mystery of our home planet. We thank these artists for their commitment to illuminating the importance of nurturing and protecting the fragile beauty of the place we all call home.

Fragile Beauty is the first juried art exhibition initiated by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The new Juried Exhibition Grant provides support for DC artists to exhibit their creative vision to the residents of Washington, DC.   See virtual gallery here.

SUSTAIN: A Public Art Experience 

Led by artist Monica Jahan Bose  

Curator: Sarah Tanguy

Location: The LINE DC Facade and Unity Park, 1770 Euclid St NW, Washington DC (@ Columbia Rd NW)

Metro: Woodley Park/Zoo or Columbia Heights; bus 90, 96, 42 and many more.

Please bring a smartphone and earphones to experience the soundwalk, which will be accessed with QR codes.

CLICK HERE FOR MEDIA RELEASE:  SUSTAIN media release final

CLICK HERE FOR BROCHURE AND ESSAY: Sustain Brochure Final

Sari Installation & Soundwalk Viewing Dates:  June 1- June 9, 2022, open 24 hours 

Dedication & Poetry Slam:  June 3, 2022 @ 7:00 – 8:30 pm    [at “Front of the Line” Terrace; NOTE DATE HAS CHANGED DUE TO WEATHER FORECAST]

Film Screening: June 3, 2022 @ 8:20 – 10 pm  [sit on steps at Front of the Line; limited chairs available for seniors]

Poetry & Welcome Farmers:  June 4, 2022 @ 10 am  – noon  [join us at Front of the Line to welcome the Farmer’s Market]

Walk-through Tours with Artist:  June 5, 2022 @  3 – 5 pm  [at Unity Park/Front of the Line]

Closing & Performance:  June 9, 2022 @ 6 pm  [starting at Front of the Line]

All events free.  All events except films livestreamed on Youtube.  Dates may change due to weather.  Register on Eventbrite to get details and updates.

For information or accommodation needs email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com or call 202-509-6282

This project is funded by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Public Art Building Communities Grant Program and supported by community and media partners Boathouse Group, The LINE DC, Licking Creek Bend Farm, Adams Morgan BID, We Act Radio, WPFW 89.3, and Moms Clean Air Force.

SUSTAIN is a collective response to sustainability and the climate crisis featuring community-sourced poetry and art on saris. Made with 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.  

Film/livestream: Paris Preston          Music & Sound Design: Sonia Herrero.   

With poetry, songs, and sari art co-created with women farmers of Katakhali Village, Bangladesh and the people of Washington DC.

Sustain DC team members include:  Maps Glover  and Kia Green (project support), Timoteo Murphy (installation support) and sari artists/poets Sonja Berry, Sherri Gales, Dominic Green, Mya Green, Lala Forbes, Rashika Johnson, Philip Mecham, Lia Totty, Demetria Willis, Yaunesha Moore, Kat Wicham, Deangelo Barnes, Jumoke Opeyemi,Julia Rosenbaum, Marjorie Thomas, Elizabeth Brandt, and many more.

Sustain team members in Bangladesh include:  Moumita Nabila  (project coordination), Sunetra (project support), and sari artists/ singers Noor Sehera, Nasima, Shahida, Zulekha, Zakia, Parveen, Hawa, Shima , Fatema, Sarbanu, Aleya, and Rekha

Please 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.

ASL available at all events.  Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.

DEDICATION WILL BE STREAMED HERE:

Join us for Light Your Fire, a project with teens from Coolidge High School in DC. They have  worked with  Monica Jahan Bose on poetry and a community scroll and will unveil their work and do a collective performance on Saturday, June 11 in the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden.

This event is brought to you by the Hirshhorn’s Artlab for teens and is open to visitors of all ages.

Light up your Saturday afternoon with the Hirshhorn’s Artlab Emerging Artist showcase and celebration. Throughout the spring, teens have been exploring and responding to public art, with the goal of reimagining monuments and memorials. Now, visitors of all ages are invited to experience their work.

Teen artists will share a collective monumental work titled Hoping for Change, which will remain on view in the Artlab, June 11–24, 2022, before moving to its permanent home at DC’s Coolidge High School. Teens will also share original poetry and perform with local artist Monica Jahan Bose.

1:15 pm Welcome (at Light of Freedom by Abigail DeVille)

1:30 pm Poetry Reading (at Light of Freedom by Abigail DeVille)

1:45 pm Performance by Emerging Artists with Monica Jahan Bose, lower Sculpture Garden

2 pm Unveiling of Hoping for Change

2:15 pm Meet and mingle with the Emerging Artists

Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist Monica Jahan Bose will lead a hands-on sari climate pledge workshop as part of the closing of Fragile Beauty. The workshop will be outdoors (unless it rains), allowing us to connect with the Earth. Participants will discuss strategies for climate action and draw, paint, and write climate pledges on a hand-woven cotton sari in solidarity with women farmers of coastal Bangladesh, who are on the frontlines of climate change. For 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 change.

Please join us for an online watch party premiering the film from the Athens performance in 2018.

On the fourth anniversary of the Storytelling with Saris project in Athens, Greece, we present a 25-minute performance film of our epic two-hour performance that took to the streets of Athens. The performance was led by Monica Jahan Bose in collaboration with Evi Athanasiou and was curated and coordinated by Angeliki Grammatikopoulou. In the performance, we wrote about the concept of “Home” on the windows of the gallery and did movement , rituals, and singing in Greek and Bengali. The piece explores the meaning of “Home” and displacement, climate change, water, migration, belonging, and community. Refugees, immigrants, and other residents of Athens joined the performance. The performance was the closing event of Monica Jahan Bose’s solo exhibition “Footprint/Apotipoma” looking at climate change and migration, curated by Vasia Deliyianni.

The project was supported by the Athens Mayor’s office, Accommodation and Services Scheme for Asylum Seekers, Athens Development & Destination Management Agency, and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which receives support from the US National Endowment on the Arts. Special thanks to Leah Stoddard for installation support and to Ambassador Jashim Uddin and the Embassy of Bangladesh for outreach to the Bangladeshi community.

The film was edited by Monica Jahan Bose and Paris Preston.  Register on Eventbrite to receive a notification or just watch directly at Youtube link below (you can also get a Youtube notification — please do subscribe to our Youtube channel.)

Monica Jahan Bose will present short films from her 2019 SUBSISTANCE project in Paris, which was in collaboration with many Parisians and people in Brittany.  Monica and Jahangir will provide a simple Bengali meal and adda, followed by the screening of short films, including the films “Water Resistance” and “Subsistance,” which were created with filmmakers Leena Jayaswal and Paris Preston.  Please join us!

L’artiste et activiste Monica Jahan Bose souhaiterait présenter deux courts-métrages tournés lors de sa visite en France et residence à The Window en 2019 pour le projet «Subsistance: Storytelling with Saris ».  Monica a créé des performances et s’est entretenue avec des Français résident en ville et à la campagne.  Son travail interroge notre consommation, nos perceptions du changement climatique et de la sécurité alimentaire, notamment dans les zones côtières particulièrement vulnérables.

Née en Angleterre, Monica Jahan Bose est une bangladaise-américaine artiste, avocate et activiste.  Elle utilise de nombreux moyens d’expression artistique: peinture, audiovisuel, photo, gravure, et performance. Dans cet esprit, elle tente de marier l’art et la politique. Elle a exposé et fait des installations au Brooklyn Museum et DUMBO Arts Festival (New York), Art Asia Miami et SELECT Art Fair (Floride), Twelve Gates Gallery (Galerie d’art de Philadelphie en Pennsylvanie), au Smithsonian Asia Pacific American Center, au Musée National du Bangladesh, au MACRO (Rome), Hirshhorn Museum (Washington), ainsi que lors d’évènements comme (e)merge art fair.

Actuellement, Monica vit et travaille entre Washington, D.C. et le Bangladesh. Elle a vécu à Paris de 2006 à 2010. Pendant cette période, elle a fait des expositions à la Galerie Deborah Zafman ainsi qu’à l’UNESCO, et a été sélectionnée pour l’exposition du Prix Marin en 2010. Elle est la créatrice de « Storytelling with Saris », un projet artistique collaboratif mené avec les femmes de son village ancestral de Katakhali au Bangladesh, mariant son histoire personnelle et l’art contemporain pour attirer l’attention sur le danger de submersion que la montée des eaux de l’Océan Indien fait peser sur son héritage et son village.

Photo credit:  Amirul Arham.

Join us for a film screening and Bengali meal at Art au Bar in Brittany, France on August 4, 2022 at 8 pm.  We will be showing “Water Resistance” and “Subsistance” addressing climate change and impacts on agriculture and food.

The chef will be preparing a Bengali “plat du jour” based on Monica’s recipes.  You may order drinks and the dinner from the menu.

L’artiste et activiste Monica Jahan Bose souhaiterait présenter deux courts-métrages tournés lors de sa visite en France et residence à The Window en 2019 pour le projet « Storytelling with Saris ».  Monica a créé des performances et s’est entretenue avec des Français résident en ville et à la campagne, notamment avec des fermiers et maraîchers de la vallée de la Rance.  Son travail interroge notre consommation, nos perceptions du changement climatique et de la sécurité alimentaire, notamment dans les zones côtières particulièrement vulnérables.

Monica Jahan Bose est née en Angleterre de parents bengalis, elle est citoyenne du Bangladesh et des États-Unis. Monica Jahan Bose est une artiste, avocate et activiste qui utilise de nombreux moyens d’expression artistique: peinture, audiovisuel, photo, gravure, et performance. Dans cet esprit, elle tente de marier l’art et la politique. Elle a exposé et fait des installations au Brooklyn Museum et DUMBO Arts Festival (New York), Art Asia Miami et SELECT Art Fair (Floride), Twelve Gates Gallery (Galerie d’art de Philadelphie en Pennsylvanie), au Smithsonian Asia Pacific American Center, au Musée National du Bangladesh, au MACRO (Rome), Hirshhorn Museum (Washington), ainsi que lors d’évènements comme (e)merge art fair.

Actuellement, Monica vit et travaille entre Washington, D.C. et le Bangladesh. Elle a vécu à Paris de 2006 à 2010. Pendant cette période, elle a fait des expositions à la Galerie Deborah Zafman ainsi qu’à l’UNESCO, et a été sélectionnée pour l’exposition du Prix Marin en 2010. Elle est la créatrice de « Storytelling with Saris », un projet artistique collaboratif mené avec les femmes de son village ancestral de Katakhali au Bangladesh, mariant son histoire personnelle et l’art contemporain pour attirer l’attention sur le danger de submersion que la montée des eaux de l’Océan Indien fait peser sur son héritage et son village.

Monica Jahan Bose
“Pink Power (Carbon Free)”
2022
Wood block and painting on hand-woven cotton saris, dimensions variable (in collaboration with AU students, other DC residents,
and Bangladeshi women farmers in the Bay of Bengal).

Address: American University, Katzen Center for the Arts, 4400 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington DC.  Parking available in Katzen garage for free on weekends and $2 per hour weekdays.  Shuttle available from Tenley Metro (Red Line). Bus N4 and several others.

Exhibition dates:  August 12-September 10, 2022. Open daily from 7 am to 11 pm.

Reception:  Saturday, August 27, 2022 from 7 to 8:30 pm.

The site-specific installation  of six saris hanging from the rotunda includes two climate pledge saris that were part of an outdoor workshop with American University students for AU’s Year of Climate Action and carried to the White House and U.S. Capitol with students rallying with the Sunrise Movement. The 2022 Year of Climate Action is designed to catapult AU to new levels of self-reflection, outreach, and engagement with climate change as an issue and with the communities that climate change touches.  Monica Jahan Bose’s Storytelling with Saris project collaborates with women farmers from her ancestral village in Bangladesh and others around the world to take action on climate and create community and conversation around the issues of climate and gender justice.

Join us for a reception on Saturday, August 27 from 7 to 8:30 pm, featuring a new video piece and discussion with Monica Jahan Bose.

Please join us to hear about the amazing research projects by the 2022 Wherewithal grant recipients.  This regrant is given by the Washington Project for the Arts and is funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation.  Details HERE.
Monica Jahan Bose will be talking about her project  Mukhe Mukhe/Mouth-to-Mouth.

Mukhe Mukhe uncovers and documents the intangible heritage related to songs, poetry, and food in Washington DC and Katakhali, Bangladesh, for the purpose of reframing and presenting the story of climate injustice in two communities.  Bangladeshis face the possible displacement of up to 30 million people, along with massive loss of coastal land and irreplaceable heritage. DC is the center of federal power, but its majority BIPOC residents lack political representation and are disproportionately impacted by climate change and suffer food insecurity.  I will investigate, transcribe, translate, and record village songs in Katakhali and spoken word poetry in DC with the goal of linking high-carbon vs low-carbon communities and drawing attention to their shared struggle in the face of climate injustice and food insecurity. The songs, poems, and food knowledge will be collected, reclaimed, created, and shared. The research will be used for performance/installations that combine text, sound, video, and food

Agenda:
(Each presentation will be 15 min.)

6:30 | Welcome – Nathalie
6:35 | Rasha Abdulhadi
6:50 | Monica Jahan Bose
7:05 | Safiyah Cheatam & Hope Willis
7:20 | Larry Cook
7:35 | Deirdre Darden
7:50 | Rex Delafkaran
8:05 | Armando Lopez-Birca