We will be in Bangladesh working on the RISING UP TO CLIMATE CHANGE: STORYTELLING WITH SARIS film and doing more arts advocacy work with the coastal women of Bangladesh in Katakhali Village, Patuakhali District.

Photo exhibition and film screening: December 31, 2017
Photo self-documentation workshop: January 2, 4, and 5, 2018
Performance: January 6, 2018

Please join us at DIRECTED ACTIONS on Friday, January 19 @ 7:30 pm at the Logan Fringe Arts Space, Trinidad Theatre, 1358 Florida Ave, NE, Washington DC 20002. Monica Jahan Bose will be in conversation with two exceptional artists/activists, Robin Bell and Holly Bass. Robin will be doing some cool projections and there will be live music by Ted Zook. Tickets are $10. Robin Bell has been doing amazing work projecting on buildings since the elections — check out this link to his brilliant projections on the EPA.

The EMK Center is pleased to invite you to a fundraiser and screening for the future film Rising Up to Climate Change: Storytelling with Saris. The film looks at the impact of climate change on women from Katakhali Village on the island of Barobaishdia in Patuakhali District through the lens of the Storytelling with Saris climate art advocacy project. It also follows the stories of Americans and Europeans who are making climate pledges on saris to reduce their carbon footprint. Unless the world takes immediate action, Bangladesh could lose 20% of its land, displacing 30 million people. Women disproportionately suffer the impacts of climate change because of cultural norms and the inequitable distribution of resources and power, especially in developing countries. Women’s leadership is also critical to addressing climate.

The all-woman film team includes Monica Jahan Bose, Leena Jayaswal, Nandita Ahmed, Shefali Akter Shetu, Dawne Langford, and Executive Producer Preema Nazia Andaleeb, as well as the women of the Katakhali Cooperative.

Bangladeshi-American artist Monica Jahan Bose has been working on the film since 2013, and Dhaka-based cinematographer Shefali Akhter Shetu joined the team in 2015. The women in the Katakhali community are also being provided several small cameras and training to self-document with film their lives and climate events such as extreme storms, cyclones, untimely rains, drought, and resulting damage and effects. The goal of the film is to empower individuals and communities around the world to take action to save Bangladesh and our entire planet from climate change.

Please join us for a screening of a 15 minute sample of the film followed by discussion. We are looking for partners to finish this important project highlighting women’s stories and their leadership in addressing climate change. Shefali Akhter Shetu will be present in person along with writer and activist Noorjahan Bose, Monica’s mother. Monica will join via Skype.

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Monica Jahan Bose is a Bangladeshi-American artist, lawyer, and activist whose work spans performance, painting, film, photography, printmaking, and interdisciplinary projects. As an artist originating from Katakhali, Bangladesh, Monica brings her history into contemporary art, translating these experiences into immersive work. She is the creator of STORYTELLING WITH SARIS, a long-term collaborative art and advocacy project, which has been featured around the world, including recent exhibitions and art actions in Paris, Hawaii, and Washington DC. In 2015, Bose partnered with the International Centre on Climate Change and Development to create a climate awareness workshop in Katakhali, Bangladesh. Alongside her art practice, she practiced and taught environmental and human rights law for many years. Monica has received numerous commissions and awards for her interdisciplinary art work.

Shefali Akter Shetu founded and manages Aperture, Ltd. in the roles of Managing Director, Photographer and Documentary Filmmaker. Since 1999, she has edited video and photography for Drik, SARPV, Panos Bangladesh, and World View International Foundation. In 2005, Shetu was given the Meena Media Award for the best documentary from UNICEF. She was also nominated for the best children’s film at Oberhausen Film Festival in 2004 for “One Lokman”, a documentary about a child street singer. In 2007-2008, she worked in India for DrikIndia through a professional skill sharing exchange program by Fredkorpset. Born in Comilla, Bangladesh, she now lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In December 2015, she joined the Storytelling with Saris team as cinematographer and editor.

For more information and bios of the full team see http://storytellingwithsaris.com/bios/

Monica Jahan Bose will be leading a series of empowerment workshops with women at a shelter in Anacostia. The women are learning about climate change and making a collaborative sari with woodblock, writing, and painting.

This project is funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo: Jaclyn Merica.

Weather the Storm

Civilian Art Projects
March 31- April 21, 2018
Opening reception: Saturday, March 31 @ 7-9 pm
Sari workshop and sing-a-long: Saturday, April 14 @ 3 pm
Closing and artist’s talk: Saturday, April 21 @ 3 pm

“Weather the Storm” centers on a series of performances and climate art actions that Monica Jahan Bose has led since November 2016. The title of the show derives from a Bengali song that the artist has been singing in her performances, lines from which appear in her paintings. She has taken Tagore’s Kharobayu Boye Bege (A Strong Wind Is Blowing) and replaced “O boatman” with “O Woman” to create a feminist song about working together to row a boat to shore during a storm. Over several years, she has collaborated with homeless women from Calvary Women’s Services in Anacostia as well as women from One Billion Rising, a global platform to end violence against women, and the women of her ancestral village, Katakhali Village, Barobaishdia Island, Bangladesh. Bose’s performances, paintings, videos, works on paper, and saris explore themes of empowerment, environment, mythology, and community.

A Bangladeshi-American artist and lawyer who has lived in seven countries, Bose uses Bengali and English text and women’s writing as integral elements in her work, highlighting multilingualism and women’s agency and literacy. Bose has long used the sari — 18 feet of unstitched handwoven fabric — to represent women’s lives, both in her paintings and her ongoing social practice project Storytelling with Saris.

She has started using the coconut as a symbol of climate resilience. Each of her recent performances about climate change — in Miami, Washington DC, Honolulu, Paris, and Katakhali Village, Bangladesh — involved months of planning to create a woman-centered community, which comes together to collect dozens of coconuts to build a raft, sew saris together to make a massive sari, write carbon reduction pledges on saris, or grow and plant a coconut tree.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication, Rising Up to Climate Change: Storytelling with Saris, and is funded in part by a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Monica Jahan Bose has exhibited her work and performed extensively in the US and internationally. Her ongoing collaborative project Storytelling with Saris has been featured in numerous publications and TV and radio programs. Her work has been featured 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 recently created a large-scale installation and performance for the Smithsonian Asia Pacific American Center’s Ae Kai Culture Lab in Honolulu. She will travel to Athens in July for a solo exhibition in connection with the UNESCO World Book Capital celebration. She has a B.A. in the practice of art (painting) from Wesleyan University, a post-graduate diploma in art from Santiniketan, India, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.

Gallery hours: Saturdays from noon to 6 pm and by appointment.

Please join us at the Black Box Theatre of the Anacostia Arts Center for a screening of the performance film from Change Is Coming, a performance on the Anacostia River with the women of Calvary Women’s Services, who have been involved with the Storytelling with Saris project since 2015. The film is 20 minutes in duration and we will be screening it several times from 3:30 to 6:00 pm, so please pop in even if you are late. We will also be making a collaborative climate pledge sari with woodblock and writing. Filmmakers Monica Jahan Bose and Leena Jayaswal will be present.

We will also have a book signing for the new book, Rising Up to Climate Change: Storytelling with Saris, which is available for $20.

The public screening will be preceded by a private screening and discussion with the women of Calvary (2:30 to 3:30 pm).

Many thanks to Camille Kashaka and the Anacostia Arts Center for making this event possible and for hosting the 2015 show “Climate and Actions.” This film, performance and screening are supported by a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Cinematography: Leena Jayaswal.
Editor: Dawne Langford.

Photo credit: Phyllis Kimmel.

Dates: July 5 – 19, 2018
Opening reception with workshop: July 6, 2018 @ 7 pm
Closing and performance: July 18, 2018 @ 7 pm.
Gallery hours: Weekdays 10-6 pm; Saturdays 10-4 pm.

We have received an invitation from the Mayor’s Office in Athens to present an exhibition titled “Footprint-Apotipoma.” The show will take place in the galleries of the new Serafio Sports, Culture and Innovation Center in the heart of Athens during the important UNESCO World Book Capital 2018 event. The exhibition is curated and organized by Vasia Deliyianni.

“Footprint- Apotipoma” is a large-scale site specific exhibition, workshops, dialogue, and performance
using saris, printmaking and video on the issues of climate change and migration. “Footprint” uses the arts to activate awareness about climate change and trigger people to reduce their carbon footprint and to build global trans-border communities through collaboration and conversation between people in Washington DC and its sister city of Athens. The project collaborates with artists, curators, writers, poets, migrants, and non-artists in Athens. A special workshop with refugee women will take place on July 12 from 6 – 9 pm.

The show is supported in part by a generous grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. We are grateful to the Mayor’s Office in Athens for its support as well.

Link to Press Release.
Link to Invitation.
Link to Curatorial essay (Greek) by Vasia Deliyianni

This special workshop will include a film-screening and multilingual dialogue with refugee and immigrant women in Athens, followed by a hands-on sari workshop where women create a sari about their displacement and migration stories. The event will be at the site of the Footprint-Apotipoma exhibition at Serafio Innovation Center. Interpreters will be provided in multiple languages, including Greek, Arabic, Farsi, French and Bengali. Participants in SHELTER will also be invited to be part of the interactive performance Home/Σπίτι(Spiti)/বাড়ি(Bari) (which is on July 18 at 7 pm).

SHELTER: July 12, 6-9 pm.

Coordinator and curator: Angeliki Grammatikopoulou

Supported by the Athens Mayor’s office and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which receives support from the National Endowment on the Arts.

Στο πλαίσιο της έκθεσης FOOTPRINT ΑΠΟΤΥΠΩΜΑ της Monica Jahan Bose θα πραγματοποιηθεί ένα εργαστήριο και μια performance, στις 12 Ιουλίου στις¨16:00 με τη συνεργασία του Προγράμματος Στέγασης και Υπηρεσιών που υλοποιείται από την ΕΑΤΑ του δήμου Αθηναίων. Γυναίκες από το πρόγραμμα θα αποτυπώσουν γράμματα και λέξεις πάνω στο Σάρι με εργαλεία και υλικά που θα προμηθεύσει η καλλιτέχνιδα. Το εν λόγω Σάρι, μαζί με ένα άλλο που θα δημιουργηθεί νωρίτερα μέσα από την συνεργασία πολιτών και της καλλιτέχνιδας, θα χρησιμοποιηθούν σε performance με συμμετέχουσες γυναίκες του προγράμματος που θα πραγματοποιηθεί κατά τη λήξη της έκθεσης στις 18 Ιουλίου.
Η έκθεση είναι μια συλλογική απάντηση στην κλιματική αλλαγή και τη μετανάστευση. Αποτελεί μέρος της ¨”Εξιστόρησης με Σάρι ” (Storytelling with Saris” ενός έργου που αποτελεί καλλιτεχνική συνεργασία και διαμαρτυρίας με σημείο εκκίνησης το Μπαγκλαντές

Home/Σπίτι(Spiti)/বাড়ি(Bari)
a feminist performance by Monica Jahan Bose in collaboration with the people of Athens

This special interactive performance will include refugee and immigrant women and connect them with other residents of Athens. The performance asks the question: what is home and how do we find new homes and rebuild our lives? The performance will include writing personal reflections on “home” on the glass windows in multiple languages; sewing together saris that contain the stories and writing of people in Athens, Paris, Bangladesh, and the US; and carrying the saris outside the gallery. All ages and genders welcome. This is a woman-centered performance and men are welcome to join and follow, but not lead. Photography of the performance is prohibited except by authorized photographers.

Home/Σπίτι(Spiti)/বাড়ি(Bari), July 18 at 7- 9 pm.

Performance coordinator and curator: Angeliki Grammatikopoulou

Supported by the Athens Mayor’s office and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which receives support from the National Endowment on the Arts.

Come join me at Anacostia Unmapped on Sunday, September 9.  I will be sharing stories of resilience from Bangladesh and Anacostia and you will get to write and draw your own stories on a sari from Bangladesh.   This is part of the exhibition Anacostia Unmapped 2.0,  curated by Karen Baker.  It’s a fascinating exhibition, so please come out to see it before it closes on September 14.  

Metro Navy Yard (Green line) – take the exit that is NOT to the baseball stadium.