Missing persons
By: Alexandra Haeseker
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Calgary, Alberta, Canada]
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; Collective behavior; Human figure in art; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: "My work investigates the collective context of isolation of the human figure. Mobs, gangs, armies, groups, populations, flocks, schools, packs and teams bring patterns, habits, rules and expectations in their behaviour ... and I look for what else those characteristics might reveal"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Printed in an edition of 6 signed copies.

Accordion 12 pp book in plastic sleeve, printed in UV vinyl ink on Mayfair cover stock.

"I designed my book to unfold horizontally so as to mimic the explosion of the bomb in the street. I incorporated archetypes representing the everyday people who frequented the book market and cafe lifestyle that is similar worldwide. The predominance of visceral red lighting on the figures against the yellow ground speaks to the light of the explosion and blood; two forces that collided in al-Mutanabbi Street that day"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

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.

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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.