Events
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
We’ve had to postpone due to bad weather to THURSDAY October 6. Join us for an outdoor driveway film screening of an updated version of SUSTAIN, an open studio, and a harvest party. Come to the back alley behind 2017 Belmont Rd NW, Washington DC 20009. We will have snacks and beverages. Metro: Woodley Park-Zoo (Red line), Bus 96, 90, 42, 43 and many more. Parking is very difficult so we suggest public transportation. The 40 minute film will be shown at sundown at approximately 7 pm.
ASL interpretation provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with questions or accommodation requests.
This event will be postponed in the event of rain. Please do reply to storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com to let us know whether you are coming.
Looking forward to seeing folks!
Supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Photo: Sustain performance, June 9, 2022, photo credit: Lucian Perkins.
Please join us for a poetry and art 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.
Everyone age 15 or older who joins at least two workshops will receive a small stipend if you are in the DC area. 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.
Please join us for a poetry and art 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.
Everyone age 15 or older who joins at least two workshops may receive a small stipend. 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!
Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.
This project is funded the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Please join us for a poetry and climate action workshop with Storytelling with Saris and Mom’s Clean Air Force. The workshop is led by Monica Jahan Bose with special guest Elizabeth Brandt of Mom’s Clean Air Force. We will be working on letter writing and poetry and providing comments on proposed EPA regulations on methane, a green house gas with negative climate and health impacts. Please have paper and pencils and a pen available for this workshop.
Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any accommodation needs. ASL and closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and streamed on Facebook, and by attending you give permission for your likeness, voice, and writings to be recorded and disseminated on social media and other media.
This event is funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and supported by Mom’s Clean Air Force.
জলকন্যা/Jalkonya (Water Woman)
কৃতকলা performance
মনিকা জাহান বোস যুগোল বন্দিতে প্রিমা নাজিয়া আন্দালীব
Monica Jahan Bose in collaboration with Preema Nazia Andaleeb
Two women weave an ecofeminist performance and dialogue using the body, water, and saris created with women farmers of Barobaishdia Island. Preema: “The sari represents women. Women, saris, and water are part of nature. The performance explores these ideas in a crowded public space in Dhaka.” Monica: “Women are burdened with carrying water long distances and suffer the brunt of the impacts of climate change, floods, and cyclones. The piece speaks to women’s solidarity.” The performance links rural and urban women in a river of saris moving from Dhaka University to the National Museum and onwards, with the public invited to join along the way.
৫ই ফেব্রুয়ারি, ২০২৩ বিকাল ৩টা, চারুকলা থেকে শুরু
February 5, 2023 @ 3:00 pm, starting at the outdoor space at Dhaka University Faculty of Fine Arts.
অনেক ধন্যবাদ চারুকলার সকলকে এবং প্রত্যেক অংশগ্রহণকারীকে। Thank you to all participants. Special thanks Dean Nisar Hossain and everyone at Dhaka University Faculty of Fine Art.
Participation from DU faculty and students, One Billion Rising Bangladesh, and Sangat.
Social engagement and social media: Zaid Islam
Photography: Shefali Akhter Shetu
Bios:
Preema Nazia Andaleeb, a prolific and provocative artist of Bangladesh, is also an entrepreneur and creative activist. Her tactile imagery, contrasting approach to create visual tension is an instinctive, intuitive and powerful weapon to challenge stereotypical thinking which is an act of her self-preservation as a woman. Her multidisciplinary
works were represented in Bangladesh National Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.Her works have been showcased at Asian Art Biennale, Fukuaka Museum Residency, Tashkent Biennale, Istanbul Biennale, Venice International Art Expo (2010, 2012, 2014) along with prestigious art fairs (Art Basel Miami, Tuyup Art Fair/Istanbul, Dubai Art Festival, Dhaka Art Summit, Delhi International Art Festival), gallery and museums. Her curatorial projects include several large-scale international expositions (Bangladesh, USA,
UK, France). Preema Nazia and her highly experimental practice believes that life is a panoramic saga which depicts a myth yet to be born, evolve and transform. Her performance provides sensuous relief in abstract distillation of complexity, textual collage & dream in destruction.
Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, film, performance, and public art. 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. Bose uses the sari — a precolonial 18-foot-long unstitched garment that is always recycled and never discarded — to represent women’s lives and the cycle of life on our planet. She has exhibited her work extensively in the US and internationally (20 solo shows, numerous group exhibitions, and more than 25 performances) including solo exhibitions at the Bangladesh National Museum and MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome. Her ongoing collaborative project STORYTELLING WITH SARIS with women farmers from her ancestral island village has travelled to 10 states and six countries and engaged 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, and all major newspapers in Bangladesh.
