Sowing seeds
By: Laurie Jo Wright
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Laurie Jo Wright]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London, England]
Language: eng
Subjects: Violence; Pictorial works; Booksellers and bookselling; Bombings; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Protest movements; Books and reading in art; Intellectual life; Social conditions; Censorship; Terrorism in art; In art; War and civilization; Vehicle bombs; Visual literature; Specimens; Cultural property; Destruction and pillage; Thread; English Collage; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

"An artist previously, I have taken a 20-year break from artwork to follow a career as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Returning to art, I have become interested in the making of book art, and enrolled in a course last year to learn various techniques. Although having completed a few books, Sowing seeds is my first to be shown publicly. The al-Mutanabbi Street Project has not only touched me emotionally, it has served as part of my own personal renaissance: it is my impression that books serve as threads in life, both for in cultures and individuals"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Dr. Laurie Jo Wright, 1975-1991: Artist, agent Anatol Orient Gallery, London. Work and exhibitions both in UK and abroad. Work primarily prints and ceramic installations; 1991-2012: MA/PhD in Psychoanalytic Studies; clinical training; work as psychoanalytic psychotherapist; 2012- current: working on a series of book(art) projects exploring analytic thinking and imagery. Completed to date: Sowing seeds, and Redrawing the analytic dialogue. Work in progress: Self/Identity - man, woman, child; Working with Jane Austen, separate but related.
Notes: Printed in an edition of 5.

Medium: Paper, collage, thread, cloth.

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.