Elegies
By: [Sue Huggins Leopard]
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Leopard Studio Editions; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Leopard Studio Editions
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Rochester, N.Y
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; Elegiac poetry; Poetry; 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.
Notes: Poem.

Artist Statement: "Elegies" was created in 2012 as part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition, to remember the losses sustained when a car bomb exploded on Al-Mutannabbi Street, the street of booksellers in Baghdad, on March 5, 2007. The bombing killed 30 people and wounded over 100, destroying cultural heritage and lives. "Elegies" uses part of a poem titled "Elegy on the death of the mother of Saif al Daula" written by Al-Mutanabbi in the year 948. Although written by the great poet in an age seemingly vanished and separated from the car bombing on Al-Mutannabbi Street in Baghdad by more than a thousand years, the words remain very moving and speak powerfully to the universal themes of mourning and the futility of violence. I echoed these lines with words byan imagined poet in 2007. A poet who I imagined might be like a young person who would frequent a street of booksellers. A poet with a potential to see beauty: to speak ... The materials and the quiet greys and tans of the papers are intended to convey an elegiac tone and reflect the desert imagery and passing of the ages. To mourn the loss. To remember, in spite of all the pain.

Issued in an edition of 5. Hand bound and signed by the artist.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.

"5 hole pamphlet stitched hardcover with foldout drawing; letterpress on various shades of Moriki paper with beeswaxed drawing. Covers of original drawings on Kozo and unryu paper covered boards and japanese cloth with gold foil stamping"--The Center for Book Arts website, http://www.centerforbookarts.org/artistmember/workdetail.asp?workID=5319&artistID=2424, viewed February 22, 2013.

First Place Artists' Book, Art of the Book 2012 Juried Exhibit, October 21 - December 9, 2012, Lower Link Gallery, Rochester Public Library, Rochester, New York.