A story in every stitch: Tackling climate change and more with sharees
Monica Jahan Bose is our Artist of the Month
Social change can go beyond the outlines of advocacy groups, international organizations, and demonstrations. As we build lines of solidarity throughout the world, humans are beginning to connect through various mediums to address issues critical to empowering communities. Monica Jahan Bose’s art and activism goes beyond her numerous exhibitions. Her projects tie together social issues such as climate change, women’s empowerment, science, and public policy to engage diverse audiences in conversations about the state of the world. Monica’s work, whether in performances, installations or on paper, are, as she calls them, symbolic narratives. Using symbols such as water, sharee, the female form and more, she strives to inspire larger conversations about women’s issues and the environment.
Monica’s work spans from performance art, photography, painting, printmaking, public art workshops and more. Her long-term, multi-layered collaborative art and advocacy project “Storytelling with Saris” presents sharees created in collaboration with 12 women from Katakhali, Bangladesh. Katakhali is an island community in Bangladesh that has been hit particularly hard by climate change, suffering repeated severe cyclones. Their sharees are presented in installations along with writings, oral histories, film, performances, and workshops to help communities across the world to address climate change and women’s rights in solidarity with the women of Katakhali.
Monica, based in Washington, D.C., has had numerous exhibitions in the US and internationally, from Dhaka to Paris to D.C. She has held over 17 solo shows and collaborated on various group exhibitions throughout the world. We caught up with her.
Some of her answers have been edited for clarity purposes.
1. When and why did you start creating art?
I started painting at a very young age, around age five or six. I was born in England and then lived in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and briefly in India as a refugee until I was nine. My parents enrolled me in children’s art classes in Bangladesh and the first painting that I can recall was of a women’s rights rally that I attended with my mother. I remember winning an award for that painting. It was a very exciting time after the independence of Bangladesh, and I was expressing myself through painting and drawing, as well as theater and poetry.
We moved to the UK when I was nine and then to the US when I was 10, and I continued to paint in school and at home and later majored in studio art at Wesleyan University. I was doing large scale figurative paintings about the body outdoors, thinking about our relationship to the environment. I then went to Santiniketan (near Kolkata in West Bengal) to study art and improve my Bangla and was immersed in the wonderfully powerful world of South Asian art — ancient, folk, and contemporary.
Keenly interested in social justice issues, I then went to law school in New York, and tried to keep up my artistic work while practicing and teaching environmental and human rights law. Much later, after moving to Paris in 2006, I started working on my art full-time, and my own identity came into focus in my art. I started introducing Bangla script, the sharee and sharee blouse (as symbols for women’s lives), and social and political issues in Bangladesh into my paintings. I also started a series of paintings about climate change and another series about mother language, using Bangla script.
2. What more can you shares with us about your art, your inspirations, and your vision?
In my work, I merge art and advocacy to address issues around gender and the environment. I am very interested in building community with my socially engaged art practice. I believe we can address climate change if we feel connected to each other.
In 2012, I started a collaborative project called “Storytelling with Saris” with twelve women from my ancestral community, Katakhali Village, Barobaishdia Island, in Patuakhali District. These women learned to read as adults after surviving two cyclones in 2007 and 2009 and rebuilding their homes and their lives. I was inspired by these women and in 2013, we created 24 sharees together with woodblock, writing, and painting. It was a special bond to work together on the sharees for 10 days. The project has continued, and I am now making collaborative sharees about climate change with communities in the US and Europe. I go back to Katakhali to lead art-based climate advocacy workshops and follow what is happening to the village and in the women’s lives. The project tries to make climate change personal, not just a huge problem that we feel too overwhelmed to tackle.
3. How do your friends and family respond to your art?
My family and friends have been very supportive of my art, and I am super appreciative that they try to follow my work and give me encouragement. I am grateful to them all. I know they must get tired of having to go to all my art events! My mother is a writer and a feminist, and I think she is happy that I’m doing what I want and need to do.
4. As an artist in the Bangladeshi diaspora, do you feel represented in the larger art community?
Yes, and no. I have been lucky to share my work in quite a few places and venues, but I do feel my work tends to classified as “Asian” and many galleries and spaces tend to believe that my work is not a good fit because they see it only as “Asian” and not for its broader artistic merit or social impact.
5. What advice would you give to your younger self about your art?
When I was younger, I thought that art could not have sufficient impact on social justice issues. I now believe I was wrong, and that art can be an important tool of social change.
6. What projects are you currently working on?
I’m currently working on a large-scale public art project called WRAPture, which focuses on climate change and covers five buildings in Washington with more than 60 sharees that I have created with over 150 community members in Katakhali and Washington, D.C. Also, I am going to Paris from May 28-June 10 and will have a project there called “Subsistence/Sustenance” about climate change and food insecurity. Please come across the Channel and join me!
Bose currently resides in Washington, D.C. You can see her work at: www.monicajahanbose.com; www,storytellingwithsaris.com
and/or on her social media handles:
Instagram: @storywithsari @mjbose;
Twitter: @storywithsari, @monicajahan;
Facebook: StorytellingWithSaris
