Shadows of loss
By: Kristine T. Bouyoucos
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Kristine Bouyoucos]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [Rochester, NY]
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.

"In learning about the killings on Al Mutanabbi Street in 2007, it became my desire to honour those who lost their lives. They kept appearing like ghosts before my eyes, like shadows. I wanted their names to be put on paper as an eternal reminder that they were here, and that they had mattered. That they were not forgotten. Their lives and their names opened my heart to a different culture, for which I am grateful ... There are twenty-eight shadow people in these pages, one for each killed. Their names appear on the back of each page. The last page has a reddish background to remind us of the more than a hundred wounded"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Kristine Bouyoucos was born and brought up in Norway, where she graduated from Gymnasium before going to the U.S. She later got a B.S. degree from Empire State College, followed by printmaking courses at Rochester Institute of Technology at the School of the Arts. In addition to numerous juried exhibits throughout the U.S., her work has been shown in Lima, Peru and Melbourne, Australia. Solo Exhibits include Arts and Cultural Council in Rochester, NY, 2008 and Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, Washington, 2001. Travelling exhibition with the NY Society for Etchers, 2008: Loyola College, Chicago, Illinois; The Paramount Center of the Arts, Peekskills, NY; The National Arts Club, NYC. She lives and works in Rochester, NY. Kristine's studio contains every tool for cutting edge printmaking and for the creation of artists' books. Her work was recently purchased for the permanent collection of the Memorial Art Museum in Rochester, NY.
Notes: Printed in an edition of seven for the International Book Project.

Medium consists of an artist's book in the concertina (accordion) style, created with digital images made from original mixed-media monotypes. Text printed from photo polymer plates in Papyrus typeface on Rives BFK paper. The cover is a cyanotype by the artist.

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.