Events
Please join us for an online 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. 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.
STORYTELLING WITH SARIS EARTH DAY 52 CLIMATE ART EVENT
April 22, 2021 11 am – 1 pm EDT, 9 pm Bangladesh, 4 pm London, 5 pm Paris/Rome, 6 pm Athens, 11 pm Bangkok/Manila. Live from Washington DC, Storytelling with Saris celebrates Earth Day 52 through a hybrid event featuring artist Monica Jahan Bose, curator Sarah Tanguy, and climate leader Elizabeth Brandt of Mom’s Clean Air Force. We will discuss the impact of the ten year long Storytelling with Saris project and the upcoming June 2022 SUSTAIN public art installation and work on sari art and concrete actions to address urgent climate and environmental issues. The studio audience will be working on sari art for the SUSTAIN installation, and the online audience will also be able to participate in the discussion and add their voices to the sari.
Storytelling with Saris was launched by Bose ten years ago and continues to highlight stories of climate injustice and resilience from Katakhali Village, Bangladesh to Washington DC, engaging thousands of people around the world through co-creation labs, performances, films, and public art installations.
See it live on Youtube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9CDxIRZgcc
Event Links: http://storytellingwithsaris.com/events/
This project is supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Public Art Building Communities Grant Program, along with community and media partners The Line Hotel, Adams Morgan BID, Mom’s Clean Air Force, We Act Radio, and Boathouse.
About Monica Jahan Bose: Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist whose work spans painting, printmaking, performance, film, and interdisciplinary projects. Her socially engaged 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. She is the creator of STORYTELLING WITH SARIS, a longterm art and advocacy project with her ancestral village of Katakhali, Bangladesh. 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.
About Sarah Tanguy: Washington, DC-based Sarah Tanguy is an independent curator and arts writer, who believes in hands-on, face-to-face collaboration with artists and the power of art to connect with the general public and our lived experience. Beyond generally themed exhibitions and collections, many of her projects have explored the intersection of art with such topics as science, food, tools, and books, inspiring new ways to engage the world around us.
Recent exhibitions include Reveal: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery at the American University Art Museum and Traces at The Kreeger Museum, both Washington, DC; and Synergy Unbound, the last of an ongoing series at the American Center for Physics, College Park, MD. Sarah is the curator for the upcoming SUSTAIN public art project. From 2004-2019, Sarah was a curator for Art in Embassies, U.S. Department of State, where she curated over 100 exhibitions and 12 permanent collections featuring U.S. and host country artists for U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas. The daughter of a U.S. diplomat, Tanguy holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from Georgetown University, and a M.A. in Art History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
About Elizabeth Brandt: Elizabeth Brandt is National Field Manager for Mom’s Clean Air Force. She and Mom’s have been partnering with Storytelling with Saris for several years. As the DC field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force from 2017 to 2019, Elizabeth Brandt fought the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Clean Power Plan, championed the passage of the Clean Energy DC Act, and tirelessly advocated for clean air and children’s health on Capitol Hill. As national field manager, she remains a fixture on the Hill, while managing field staff across the US. Elizabeth’s work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, BBC America, The Hill, and NowThis.
Before working for Moms Clean Air Force, Elizabeth worked in social work and public health in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Elizabeth grew up in the shadow of a copper smelter that covered her neighborhood with arsenic and other chemicals. She is determined to ensure that other families do not experience the devastating impacts that living close to underregulated industrial sites can cause. A mother of two daughters, Elizabeth became increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change after the birth of her first child. Elizabeth holds a master’s degree in social work.
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.
Storytelling with Saris has joined forces with Moms Clean Air Force and will be leading a Climate Art Action Thursday, May 19 at 4-6 pm near the Senate offices. The address is: corner of 1st St NE and D St NE, Washington DC near Lower Senate Park. Metro: Union Station. Join us for a performance with saris and recitation of climate justice poetry.
Join Moms Clean Air Force and the Climate Action Campaign for a climate art action in support of climate solutions outside of the US Senate Office Buildings! In collaboration with Bangladeshi-American artist and activist Monica Jahan Bose, we will host a climate art action as part of a public art experience from Storytelling with Saris.
Sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/climateactioncampaign/event/457362/?referring_vol=180856&rname=Monica×lot=3203060&share_medium=email_link&share_context=email_3
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.
