Foundations
By: Erin Sweeney
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [E. Sweeney]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Peterborough, New Hampshire]
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; Conceptual art; Space and time in art; 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.

"'Foundations' attempts to illustrate the stories, storytellers, people, books, and buildings of al-Mutanabbi Street. The act and process of building is an integral part of my work always, be it community or object. I thought about the devastation for so long and how to honour the people and place, with no real idea of what it is like to be devastated in this way. Finally, I started thinking about re-building, starting again, and what we choose to preserve. We build foundations emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The act of building is common among us all, as are books and stories and community. Sometimes our physical places take ourselves over, and sometimes we take over our physical places. We bring these places with us wherever we go, as we do our stories. Our books are our cornerstones because they hold these stories, and new lives are built upon these stories, these foundations. We preserve time and space and stories with our memories and with what we can make with our hands"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Erin Sweeney produces work and teaches out of her Lovely In The Home Press in New Hampshire. She received her MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she was awarded the Elizabeth C. Roberts Prize for Graduate Book Arts. She also holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Maine College of Art in Portland. Sweeney teaches and exhibits nationally. Her current work can be seen at University of Southern Maine's Glickman Family Library and in Maine College of Art's Process and Place exhibition.
Notes: Edition of 3.

Medium/materials: Hand and machine sewn muslin, graphite and acrylic; hand-drawn and letterpress printed on Mohawk; accordion book.

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.

Rare Book copy: Mannequin shelved F-Flat

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.