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.

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.

We are excited to show the WRAPture film at the Dhaka Art Summit on Thursday, February 9, 2023 at 6:30 pm.  The film is 48 minutes long and will be followed by a discussion with Monica Jahan Bose.  Click here for full schedule of events at DAS.

“WRAPture: A Public Art Project”: The film follows a climate justice art project from Washington DC’s low-income Anacostia neighborhood to Barobaishdia, a remote Bangladeshi island on the frontlines of climate change. Bangladeshi-American artist Monica Jahan Bose leads a dozen women farmers and over 200 Washingtonians to co-create 65 climate-themed saris, which wrap five Washington buildings. While they work on the saris, the participants recite poetry, sing, and dance, creating a trans-border community.  The film includes rare footage and testimony of the impacts of climate change on coastal women farmers and the power of art to bring about change. It premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington at a joint event with the Smithsonian.

Director: Monica Jahan Bose

Editing: Monica Jahan Bose and Preston

Original Score: Sonia Herrero

Camera: Paris Preston, Shefali Akhter Shetu, Monica Jahan Bose and others.

We are so pleased to join OBR Bangladesh for their 10th anniversary celebration on V-Day 2023.

Monica Jahan Bose will be in Katakhali Village from February 15-21, 2023 and will be leading a series of workshops, performances, and film screenings.

Schedule below:

Feb. 17 morning:  Sari printing workshops

Feb. 18 morning:  Climate advocacy writing workshop

Feb. 18 3 pm:  Youth painting workshop

Feb. 18 6:30 pm:  Film screening of Storytelling with Saris films

Feb. 19 morning:  Performance on Bay of Bengal

Feb. 19 6:30 pm:  Film screening of Storytelling with Saris films

Feb. 20th morning:  Gender and sexuality workshop at Katakhali High School

Feb 20th 2 pm: Oral tradition song recording and writing workshop

Feb. 20 th 4 pm:  Performance on Darchira River with girls on bikes

Feb. 21 morning:  Language Martyr’s day sunrise procession followed by children’s performances

WRAPture: A Public Art Project will be screened as part of the conference“Gendered Threads of Globalization: 20th Century Textile Crossings in Asia Pacific” at the University of Victoria in Canada.  Please join us for the 49 minute film and Q&A. The event is free and open to the public.

This documentary film follows a textile-based climate justice art project from Washington D.C.’s low-income Anacostia neighborhood to Barobaishdia, a remote Bangladeshi island on the frontiers of climate change. Bangladeshi-American artist Monica Jahan Bose leads a dozen women farmers and over 200 Washingtonians to co-create 65 climate-themed saris.  The participants recite poetry, sing, and dance creating a trans-border community. The film includes rare footage and testimony of the impacts of climate change on coastal women farmers and the power of art to bring about change. It premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington at a joint event with the Smithsonian and was also screened at the Dhaka Art Summit in 2023.

I am excited to present my work for the first time in Canada as part of the Gendered Threads of Globalization Conference organized by Professor of Art History Melia Belli-Bose at the University of Victoria.  I will be creating a performance as well as lecturing in the classroom. The Keynote Performance will be interactive and we will be sewing and mending by hand and with sewing machines.  It will also be livestreamed so you can watch online if you register at link below.

Conference details here.

Performance details here.