Please join us for a community workshop to create SWIMMING, a new public art project that explores the deep and essential connections we have to water as our world faces increased flooding and rising sea levels due to climate change. If weather permits, the workshop wil be outdoors on the sidewalk.  When installed in June 2024 at the Marie Reed Community & Aquatic Center in Washington DC, SWIMMING will feature a “pool” of art-embellished saris, along with a sound walk, performances, film screenings, and poetry readings.  Artist and climate activist Monica Jahan Bose will lead a poetry and art workshop where we will create poetry and art inspired by the healing properties of water and swimming and inequities in access. SWIMMING is part of Bose’s art and advocacy project Storytelling with Saris.  Started over a decade ago, the project has fostered collaboration with women from Bose’s ancestral island in Bangladesh as well as residents of DC and people around the world.

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.  Register for the event on Eventbrite. 

Curator:  Sarah Tanguy.  Photography/livestream: Paris Preston  Music & Sound Design: Sonia Herrero.

Community partners:  Marie Reed Elementary School and Community & Aquatic Center, Adams Morgan Partnership BID, DC Arts Center, Calvary Women’s Services.

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

Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, film, performance, and installation. 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. She has exhibited her work extensively in the US and internationally (22 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 decade-long collaborative project STORYTELLING WITH SARIS with women farmers from her ancestral island village has traveled to eight countries and 12 US states, engaging 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 the Japan Times, Prothom Alo and all major newspapers in Bangladesh. The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum has acquired and group of her paintings, saris, and archival materials for its collection.  Monica 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. 

Please join us for an an art and poetry workshop to cocreate work for SWIMMING, a new public art project that explores the deep and essential connections we have to water as our world faces increased flooding and rising sea levels due to climate change. Our host is Moms Clean Air Force. In honor of Mental Health Month, we will be focusing on healing, poetry, and hands on art to increase mindfulness, reduce climate anxiety, and improve mental health. When installed in June 2024 at the Marie Reed Community & Aquatic Center in Washington DC, SWIMMING will feature a “pool” of art-embellished saris, along with a sound walk, performances, film screenings, and poetry readings. Artist and climate activist Monica Jahan Bose will discuss the project and then lead a poetry and art workshop where we will create poetry and art on saris inspired by the healing properties of water and swimming and inequities in access. SWIMMING is part of Bose’s art and advocacy project Storytelling with Saris. Started over a decade ago, the project has fostered collaboration with women from Bose’s ancestral island in Bangladesh as well as residents of DC and people around the world.

ASL interpretation will be provided. Please email storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com with any questions or accommodation needs.  Register for the event on Eventbrite.

Curator:  Sarah Tanguy.  Photography/livestream: Paris Preston  Music & Sound Design: Sonia Herrero.

Community partners:  Marie Reed Elementary School and Community & Aquatic Center, Adams Morgan Partnership BID, DC Arts Center, Calvary Women’s Services.

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

Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, film, performance, and installation. 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. She has exhibited her work extensively in the US and internationally (22 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 decade-long collaborative project STORYTELLING WITH SARIS with women farmers from her ancestral island village has traveled to eight countries and 12 US states, engaging 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 the Japan Times, Prothom Alo and all major newspapers in Bangladesh. The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum has acquired and group of her paintings, saris, and archival materials for its collection.  Monica 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.