Street map
By: Celia Stanley
Contributors: 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: Fleet, Hart, 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; Cultural property; Destruction and pillage; Maps in art; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Other titles: Al-Mutanabbi Street
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.

"The starting point for this project was a map of Baghdad. Maps are a shrunken, paper representation of what exists in the real world, giving no hint of the diversity of life and death happening in the real world: 'The lived body is what affords a "feel" for a given landscape, telling us how it is to be there ... ' (Casey, E.S., 2005). The intention behind the books was to bring some feeling of life, and death, to the map, and with it, a record of the catastrophic event in Al Mutanabbi Street and a tribute to its victims"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"My work looks at objects and their connectivity to the past or to an absent loved one. Paper artefacts such as maps and documents also link to the lived life, but give no hint in themselves of the diversity of events happening in the real world. Refolding and re-presentation of these objects awakens the links and memories"--Statement from the artist's blog (viewed July 22, 2015).
Notes: Medium/materials: Digital design from waxed & painted map of Baghdad, card, recycled book covers. Starting from the paper map, wax resist was used to write words about the tragedy, and also lines from the poems of Al-Mutanabbi, onto the surface, which was then flooded with ink. A digital design was created from this surface, which was mirrored and used in a map fold, to create the small books. The covers are created from old recycled book covers, alluding to the secondhand bookshops of Al-Mutanabbi Street.

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.