One book, two poets
By: Ann Forbush
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: [Ann Forbush]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Boston, Massachusetts]
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; 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.

Ann holds a BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, with a double major in painting and photography. After studying textile printing at Boston University, she worked as a textile designer for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's national mail-order catalogue. Ann went on to join the faculty at the deCordova Museum School, specialising in printmaking and mixed media. She is on the boards of The Monotype Guild of New England and the Watertown Children's Theatre. Since 2001, she has mounted 4 solo exhibitions and participated in over 65 group shows, received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Watertown Community Foundation. Ann is represented in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington, DC. In 2011, she launched an international art collaboration called The Par Avion Project, which culminated with an exhibition in Strasbourg, France.
Notes: Medium: Altered book with photocopies, paint, wax, metal key, plastic compass, fabric, sandpaper, ribbon.

"When I read about the destruction of booksellers in Baghdad, I was flooded with emotions, as I pictured streets in Boston, Seattle, London or Edinburgh where books are bought and sold. Places where local writers and artists meet to drink coffee and talk about their ideas. The places where people go to window shop, buy local foods and sit in cafés. Most cities have a district like this; a safe haven for cultural exchange. For generations, Baghdad had a place like that too, until it was levelled by a car bomb. Civilians targeted for having the audacity to read? I could only begin to imagine the horror of an explosion tearing through this quiet street, as unsuspecting merchants and shoppers went about their daily routines. Reflecting on this incident, I had a vision of smoke rising and ashes descending; centuries of ideas swirling together, their meaning reduced to rubble in a single instant. The edition of books I made in response to this tragedy combine words from the great Eastern poet, Al-Mutanabbi, and the great Western poet, William Shakespeare. When their words are charred and mingled together, their poetry is lost, and we, the spectators, are left to make sense of the senseless. It is my hope that by bringing hundreds of artists' books together, all themed on this atrocity, we can raise our voices and begin a dialogue that will prevent this kind of senseless destruction of art and ideas"--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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.