March 5th, 2007 Al-Mutanabbi Street
By: by Alex Appella ; text excerpts from Beau Beausoleil ; memory photo by Raya Asee ; desert track photo by Dr. Zsolt Zatrok
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Beausoleil, Beau, 1941- poet; Asee, Raya, photographer; Zatrok, Zsolt, photographer; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Córdoba, Argentina?]
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.

"Alex Appella (born in Oregon, USA) began bookbinding on a boat in Alaska before taking her creations to the streets and plazas of Latin America. What began as a temporary solution within a nomadic lifestyle has turned into a way of life. Alex now writes and binds from her home in Córdoba, Argentina. Alex's artists' books can be found in The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, in special collections at libraries and universities all over the US, and in private collections from Mexico to Argentina, Denmark to Russia, and beyond"--Artist's statement from the Centre for Fine Print Research website (viewed April 20, 2015).
Notes: Created using ink jet prints and binding canvas.

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.