Reading rooms for Al-Mutanabbi Street
By: Margaret Cooter
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: 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; Artists' books; Memory; Collective memory; 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.

"I have been drawing and sewing since childhood and making books for many years, during a career that has involved librarianship, editing, and other work in publishing. Art and textiles courses at City Lit, London, led to the art foundation course, which I completed in March 2010; in September 2012, I completed the MA Visual Arts (book arts pathway) at Camberwell College of Art. My project title was 'Everyone's everyday journey: growing older;' it looked at aspects of memory, functioning, and language in adult life - topics which I am developing in further work"--Artist's personal website (viewed June 19, 2015).
Notes: Medium: Graphite, wax, and ink on paper; double accordion fold structure, display format variable; band for holding book closed.

"Bare walls and empty pages. Bare walls in rooms that are empty of books: rooms without windows. Empty pages in books that have not been written, books that cannot be read: whose riches are unknown. This set of rooms can be set out in various configurations - a street, a village - or tipped over and stretched out, becoming a bridge over an invisible river"--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.