SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS/INSTALLATIONS
Warming Waters, public art project and virtual event on Earth Day 2020 about climate change in collaboration with Robin Bell, Washington, DC 2020
The Tides/La Marea, MACRO Contemporary Art Museum of Rome, Rome, Italy, 2019 (exhibition, climate lab, and performance, curated by Simona Amelotti)
Subsistence, the Window, Paris, France, 2019 (residency and exhibition exploring food insecurity due to climate change, curated by Catherine Bay)
Seven Minutes on the B67, Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2019 (a project about climate change and community, engaging and connecting two Brooklyn communities— Bangladeshi immigrants in Kensington and residents of South Park Slope; in collaboration with Arts & Democracy)
WRAPture, a public art project in Anacostia, Washington, DC and Katakhali, Bangladesh, 2019 (wrapping five DC buildings with 65 saris, covered in imagery and writing about climate change by hundreds of DC residents through a series of art actions over a eight month period)
Footprint-Apotýpoma, Serafio Sports, Culture, and Innovation Center, Athens, Greece (at the invitation of the City of Athens), 2018 (large scale site-specific solo installation with workshops and performance, curated by Vasia Deliyianni and Angeliki Grammatikoupoulou)
Weather the Storm, Civilian Art Projects, Washington, DC, 2018 (solo exhibition of paintings, saris, video; curated by Jayme McClellan)
De la nourriture, The Window, Paris, France, 2017 (residency and installation, curated by Catherine Bay)
Water, Capital One Gallery, Richmond, VA, 2016 (multi-media exhibition with climate workshops)
Climate and Actions: Storytelling with Saris, Anacostia Arts Center, Washington, DC, 2015 (multi-media installation with climate workshops and video)
And Then, Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2015 (multi-media installation with video)
Her Words: Storytelling with Saris, Edward M. Kennedy Center for Public Service and the Arts, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2014 (multi-media installation with three-channel video)
SELECTED PERFORMANCES/ART ACTIONS
Waste, Katakhali Village, Bangladesh, 2019 (a public art project with 30 women and children of the Katakhali Women’s cooperative; cleaning up litter in the village while wearing sea green saris and singing and dancing)
Rising Up, Art Deco Welcome Center and Lummus Park, Miami Beach, FL, 2018 (climate art action and performance with One Billion Rising Miami, as part of Superfine! Art Fair)
Women Leaders in Global Climate Action, Global Climate Action Summit, San Francisco, CA, 2018 (installation and climate pledge workshop for Sierra Club women leaders event)
Deux Degres, Galerie Six Elzevir, Paris, France, 2017 (full day climate art action/performance with several groups in Paris, culminating with a long march down to the Seine)
De la nourriture, The Window, Paris, France, 2017 (performance, curated by Catherine Bay)
Reclaim at Ae Kai: A Culture Lab on Convergence, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center at Ala Moana, Honolulu, Hawai’i, 2017 (climate and language labs and climate art action/performance)
Change Is Coming, Calvary Women’s Services, Washington, DC, 2017 (interactive climate art actions and collaborative performance by Anacostia River with homeless women, carried out over the course of months)
Floating/Drowning, Superfine and Satellite Art Shows, during Art Basel-Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL, 2016 (five-day climate art action with women of One Billion Rising-Miami)
AddaArt (Adda + Art), Brooklyn, NY, 2016 (women’s empowerment art project with immigrant Bangladeshis, including recording intergenerational immigration stories on Storycorps App, creating collaborative sari kantha embroidered mats over period of several months, and claiming public space at Avenue C Plaza to engage in public conversation or “Adda”; in collaboration with Arts & Democracy)
Darchira River, Katakhali Village, Barobaishdia Island, Bangladesh 2016 (large scale riverside performance about climate change in collaboration with women of the Katakhali Cooperative)
Rising, Perform(art)ive, Philadelphia, USA, 2015 (performance/installation with video projections; curated and presented by Twelve Gates Gallery)
Inundation, Nuit Blanche DC/Art All Night, Dupont Circle, Washington, DC, USA, 2015 (nighttime street performance with bicycles, commissioned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Dupont Circle Main Street)
And Then, Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2015 (feminist performance inside museum and on street with dozens of women, with One Billion Rising-Bangladesh for REVOLUTION 2015)
Jalobayu (Climate.Water.Wind.), SELECT Art Fair during Art Basel-Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL, 2014 (beach performance with women of One Billion Rising-Miami)
Water, Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, NY, 2014 (for launch of Incident magazine on performance art, curated by Eames Armstrong)
Unwrapped, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, 2014 (creator and lead artist in public performance/ installation for “Women’s Stories” program for Women’s History Month)
SELECTED PERFORMANCES/ART ACTIONS
Waste, Katakhali Village, Bangladesh, 2019 (a public art project with 30 women and children of the Katakhali Women’s cooperative; cleaning up litter in the village while wearing sea green saris and singing and dancing)
Rising Up, Art Deco Welcome Center and Lummus Park, Miami Beach, FL, 2018 (climate art action and performance with One Billion Rising Miami, as part of Superfine! Art Fair)
Women Leaders in Global Climate Action, Global Climate Action Summit, San Francisco, CA, 2018 (installation and climate pledge workshop for Sierra Club women leaders event)
Deux Degres, Galerie Six Elzevir, Paris, France, 2017 (full day climate art action/performance with several groups in Paris, culminating with a long march down to the Seine)
De la nourriture, The Window, Paris, France, 2017 (performance, curated by Catherine Bay)
Reclaim at Ae Kai: A Culture Lab on Convergence, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center at Ala Moana, Honolulu, Hawai’i, 2017 (climate and language labs and climate art action/performance)
Change Is Coming, Calvary Women’s Services, Washington, DC, 2017 (interactive climate art actions and collaborative performance by Anacostia River with homeless women, carried out over the course of months)
Floating/Drowning, Superfine and Satellite Art Shows, during Art Basel-Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL, 2016 (five-day climate art action with women of One Billion Rising-Miami)
AddaArt (Adda + Art), Brooklyn, NY, 2016 (women’s empowerment art project with immigrant Bangladeshis, including recording intergenerational immigration stories on Storycorps App, creating collaborative sari kantha embroidered mats over period of several months, and claiming public space at Avenue C Plaza to engage in public conversation or “Adda”; in collaboration with Arts & Democracy)
Darchira River, Katakhali Village, Barobaishdia Island, Bangladesh 2016 (large scale riverside performance about climate change in collaboration with women of the Katakhali Cooperative)
Rising, Perform(art)ive, Philadelphia, USA, 2015 (performance/installation with video projections; curated and presented by Twelve Gates Gallery)
Inundation, Nuit Blanche DC/Art All Night, Dupont Circle, Washington, DC, USA, 2015 (nighttime street performance with bicycles, commissioned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Dupont Circle Main Street)
And Then, Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2015 (feminist performance inside museum and on street with dozens of women, with One Billion Rising-Bangladesh for REVOLUTION 2015)
Jalobayu (Climate.Water.Wind.), SELECT Art Fair during Art Basel-Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL, 2014 (beach performance with women of One Billion Rising-Miami)
Water, Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, NY, 2014 (for launch of Incident magazine on performance art, curated by Eames Armstrong)
Unwrapped, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, 2014 (creator and lead artist in public performance/ installation for “Women’s Stories” program for Women’s History Month)
PRESS
Voice of American feature on Warming Waters, RTV network and online, September 10, 2020
Riley Board, “Eighteen Feet of Fabric Can Go a Long Way,” Smithsonian Magazine (Digital), August 12, 2019.
“Closing the Gap Between Communities in Similar Situations,” Good Morning Washington, ABC Channel 7, April 8, 2019 (feature on WRAPture project)
Courtney Lindall, NRDC, “From Bangladesh to Brooklyn: a Clothing Exchange Inspires Climate Action”, August 19, 2029
R.J. Eskow, Interview on The Zero Hour, February 6, 2019 (about WRAPture project)
Ambika Samartya-Howard, “Fighting Climate Change with Art and Saris,” The Establishment, Nov. 26, 2018 Giorgos Mylones, “Monica Bose’s Footprint for the first time in Athens,” The Huffington Post, July 9, 2018 Mark Jenkins, “Weather the Storm Images are Ominous Yet Reassuring,” The Washington Post, April 15, 2018
Meraz Mostofa, “A Picture, a Sari, and a Song,” The Dhaka Tribune Climate Edition, April 20, 2018 “Culture Convergence,” Honolulu Star Advertiser, July 7, 2017
“Saris Connect Anacostia and Bangladesh,” East of the River Magazine, July 2015
Anya van Wagtendonk, “Climate and Actions: Storytelling with Saris,” Washington City Paper, May 8, 2015
“AND THEN Exhibition and Related Performance by Bangladeshi-American artist Monica Jahan Bose,” NTV Online, Arts & Culture, February 11, 2015.
“Storytelling with Saris,” Prothom Alo (review of And Then performance in Bangladesh’s largest circulation newspaper), February 15, 2015.
“Saris, Journals and a Video Triptych: Art to Inspire Social Change,” Dhaka Courier Magazine, July 25, 2014.
“Pulled to Bangladesh Via Sari,” Prothom Alo Magazine (cover story and review of exhibition in largest circulation newspaper in Bangladesh), August 2, 2014.
“Shrimati Liberty Takes Over the Brooklyn Museum,” India Abroad, April 2014 (review of Unwrapped). “The (e)merge art fair in Washington, DC,” Berlin Art Link, October 17, 2013 (review of Unwrapped). Miryam Haarlammert, “Worn: Monica Jahan Bose’s Storytelling with Saris,” Art Asia Pacific Magazine,
October 2013.
Jamie Lutz, “The Sanskirt epic ‘Mahabharata’ was a prompt for the Water Street performance,” The Brooklyn Paper, October 1, 2013 (cover story) (review of Sublime Virtue).
Genevieve Bellmaker, “SUBLIME VIRTUE and 216-foot Sari at DUMBO Arts Festival,” Epoch Times, New York News, September 29, 2013.
BOOKS/EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
Renew, Future Cartographic Press, 2020 (art book).
Rising Up to Climate Change: Storytelling with Saris, Civilian Art Projects, 2018 (art book).
Her Words: Storytelling with Saris, Dhaka Art Center and Brentwood Arts Exchange, 2013 (art book). “Open the Door,” Dhaka Art Center and American Center of Bangladesh, 2010 (catalogue). “Drowning: Is There Time for Love?” Alliance Française of Dhaka, 2009 (catalogue).
SELECTED AWARDS/GRANTS
Public Art Grant for WARMING WATERS project by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities (“DCCAH”), 2020
Public Art Grant for WRAPture project, DCCAH, 2019
Artist Fellowship, DCCAH (with NEA), 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 Halcyon Art Lab Pilot Fellowship, 2016
Art Lives Here grant (through NEA), 2013
SELECTED SEMINARS, TALKS & WORKSHOPS
Presentation and Workshop “Powerful Public Engagement through Art,” BECC (Behavior, Environment & Climate Change) Conference, Washington, D.C., 2018
Talk and Film Screening “Environment, Art, and Race,” Cinema du Pantheon, Paris, France, June 2019
Podcast/Radio, “Women Rising Up Through Art and Activism,” Bad Feminists Making Films, Nov. 8, 2019
Presentation and Workshop, “Gender and Climate Change,” Sierra Club’s Youth Activists, Washington, D.C. 2017 and 2016
Keynote Speaker for “South Asia and the World” series, presenting “From Bangladesh to Brooklyn: Transnational Art Practices,” University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Feb. 2017
Presentation for panel, “Gender Inequality in the Arts,” George Washington University/Corcoran, April 21, 2016 (with Mellissa Chiu, Director of Hirshhorn, and Victoria Reis, Director of Transformer)
Presentation and Workshop, “Using Art for Social Justice,” SAALT Annual Conference, American University Law School, Washington, DC, April 10, 2015
Women in America Lecture, “Rising Up Against Climate Change: Storytelling with Saris,” Keynote Speaker for Women’s History Month at Simpson College, Des Moines, IA, March 4, 2015
Art Talk, “The Intersection of Art and Social Change,” Bengal Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 15, 2015
Presentation, “Storytelling with Saris: Resilience in the Face of Climate Change,” Keynote Speaker at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Live Lecture and National Webinar to Nine Regional Offices) for Asian Pacific Heritage Month, Washington, DC, May 14, 2014.
AFFILIATIONS
Board Member, Samhati, Bangladeshi Women’s Organization, Washington, DC, 2003 to present. Board Member, South Asian Women’s Creative Collective, New York, NY, 2011 to 2016.
