We are excited to announce the Climate Hope project by Monica Jahan Bose presented by the Arlington Art Truck of Arlington County Government.  Curated by Cynthia Connolly, eight activations will occur at various locations across Arlington, Virginia.  Contribute to a community created art project by writing a poem, pledge, or an illustration directly onto an 18-foot-long cotton sari that is adorned by woodblocks from the artist’s ancestral village in Bangladesh. The poems and pledges will complete the sari which already includes climate themed wood block prints. On the last day, the public is invited to join a procession with over 70 feet of saris through an Arlington neighborhood to a waterway.  Here is the PRESS RELEASE.

Activation dates:

Wednesday, April 3 – Barcroft School, not open to public 

Sunday, April 7 – 9 am -1 pm – Columbia Pike Farmers Market, 2820 Columbia Pike

Saturday, April 20 – 8 an -noon – Lubber Run Farmers Market opening day, 4401 N Henderson Road

Sunday, April 21 – 11 am -5 pm – Earth Day, Every Day, 4500-4550 Cherry Hill Road

Sunday, May 5 – 9 am -1 pm – Fairlington Farmers Market opening day, 3308 S Stafford Street Special guest: Arlington Poet Laureate Courtney LeBlanc will be with us 9-11am 

Thursday, May 16 – 3-7 pm – MoCA on the Move with MoCA Arlington at MET Park, South Elm Street between South 13th and South 14th Streets  

CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN Saturday, May 18 – 10 am -1 pm – Family Fun Day in the Park, Alcova Heights Park, 901 S George Mason Drive. 

Saturday, May 25 – 11 am-2:30 pm – Shirlington Library, 4200 Campbell Avenue ;  11-1: activation outside-(drop by anytime), 1-2:30: artist talk in library and community performance/procession from library to Jennie Dean park. There is limited space for the artist talk indoors. Free. Sign up here.  

Check here for latest information  

Image:  Monica Jahan Bose in Water Resistance performance, Paris, France, 2019, photo credit: Amirul Arham

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. 

Bangladeshi-American artist and climate activist Monica Jahan Bose will lead a hands-on sari  workshop with high school students at Georgetown Day School’s Policy Institute addressing environmental and gender justice.  Participants will discuss strategies for climate action and gender justice and draw, paint, and write on a hand-woven cotton sari from Bangladesh.  For over 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. This is a private workshop for students at the GDS Policy Institute.

Storytelling with Saris workshops will take place in February 2025 in Bangladesh.  The workshops will include sari printing, new kantha creations from worn saris from Storytelling with Saris, new song creation, and performance.

Storytelling with Saris is thrilled to announce our participation in World Pride DC 2025 and our receipt of a World Pride grant from the Capital Pride Alliance.

. Link to press release from Capital Pride and World Pride DC 2025.

Weaving Resistance: Storytelling with Saris

In this moment of human rights crisis created by the current U.S. administration, it is imperative to build community and fight back for LGBTQ+ rights without apology or retreat. This year’s World Pride theme is The Fabric of Freedom. Textiles have served as modes of resistance for centuries, especially by women and other marginalized groups. Since 2012, the Storytelling with Saris collaborative art project has been using the cotton sari — a 19-foot-long unstitched garment— as a site of community expression of bodily autonomy and gender and climate justice. Cotton saris are covered in woodblock printing, stencils, painting, drawing, embroidery, appliqué, and poetry and then used for large scale installations and performances.

Over the last decade, Storytelling with Saris workshops, performances, and installations have engaged thousands of people in 13 U.S. states and 8 countries, including Bangladesh, Canada, France, Greece, and Italy. Recent Storytelling with Saris projects, performances, workshops, and roundtables in the U.S. and Bangladesh have specifically focused on LGBTQ+ issues, gender roles and identity, bodily autonomy, and increasing understanding and acceptance of gender-nonconforming persons through discussion, education, and collaborative art and performance.

For World Pride 2025, Storytelling with Saris will present five healing and empowering art and poetry workshops on gender/sexuality/identity to foster greater inclusion, empathy, and pride in this difficult political climate. The workshops will culminate in a community performance and march. We are partnering with Human Rights Campaign, Moms Clean Air Force, and Asian Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Group.  ASL is available for all events.  All events in accessible spaces. Please contact storytellingwithsaris@gmail.com for any accommodation requests.

Weaving Resistance: Storytelling with Saris Events

Register for all events at this link on EVENTBRITE.