Sari Climate Workshop Showcases How We Are All Intertwined

Standing on the banks of the Anacostia River, it might be hard to imagine a direct connection to women in the fishing village of Katakhali, a fishing village on the island of Barabaishdia, in Bangladesh.  It’s so far away —it takes days of travel, by plane, car, and boat to get there from Washington, D.C. –and their lives are so different from ours. But artist and advocate Monica Jahan Bose, whose maternal family is from the island, wants us all to understand how our lives are intertwined, and she uses 18-foot-long woven cotton saris to help us see the relationship.

Jahan Bose wants people in Washington, D.C. to recognize how our daily actions affect climate change, and how climate change directly threatens the lives and livelihoods of people in Bangladesh. Americans use far more fossil fuels than the people of Bangladesh, whose lives are being upended by climate change in dramatic ways.  Jahan Bose’s artistic work illustrates the transnational impacts of environmental injustice and aligns with the Anacostia Community Museum’s focus on the environment for 2023, and with our broader mission to illuminate and amplify communities’ collective power.  

Bose has worked for over a decade with women farmers from Katakhali.  They weave saris, which Bose then brings back to D.C.  In arts workshops like one recently hosted at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, she shares images of the village and the women who live there, and describes how rising sea levels and the resulting influx of salt into the local rivers are decimating the fish harvest, and explains that scientists predict the loss of much of the island in years to come. She asks participants to think about specific things they might be able to do to reduce their own reliance on fossil fuels to help. Together, the participants use woodblocks, paints, and markers to decorate a sari, including pledges they make—which might include promises to turn off lights, walk and bike more often, turn down their thermostats in the winter, or compost to help reduce methane in the city’s landfills.  Bose reads the pledges to the women in Bangladesh, who consider the saris “letters” from people in America. In a survey, most of the participants in ACM’s workshop said it helped change their perspective on climate change and helped them feel more able to make a difference.

Generous support from the Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific American Center made it possible for ACM to host the workshop, and to acquire two two saris that were among a group decorated in 2018 by people in Anacostia and displayed hanging from buildings along Good Hope Road SE and Martin Luther King Avenue SE as part of Bose’s WRapture project.  We are also acquiring two of Bose’s paintings that document a public performance using the saris along the Anacostia River, and three woodblocks that were used to decorate them, in addition to archival materials and an oral history.  The museum is thrilled to include these important works in its collection as a testament to the creative and inspiring work that Jahan Bose and local community members have undertaken to use art in the effort to raise awareness of climate change and our ability to contribute to efforts to protect our earth and all its people.