Pages reign
By: by Laura Russell
Contributors: 23 Sandy Gallery; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [23 Sandy Gallery?]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Portland, Oregon]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 24
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; Poetry; Arabic Calligraphy; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: "The bombing of the booksellers on al-Mutanabbi Street in Iraq really touched my soul. As a book seller and book maker, I had a hard time reconciling such an atrocious event with my own complacency about our too-easy-to-take-for-granted freedoms of commerce, thoughts, and ideas. I thought about the words 'pages reign' as a symbol for that freedom and the importance of books. How can it be that bombs can so easily turn those words to 'pages rain.' The images in my mind of book pages raining down after the bombs blare make me hope and pray that some day the people of Iraq will see 'pages rise' again. The text featured in this book is a poem I wrote"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Laura Russell is a photographer and book artist who creates hand-bound, limited-edition artist books of many forms. She has participated in national and international book arts and fine art exhibitions. Her books are collected by individual collectors and are in major collections at museums, libraries, universities and corporations. Laura is also the owner of 23 Sandy Gallery, a fine art gallery in Portland, Oregon.
Notes: Printed in a limited, variable edition of four.

Medium/Materials: Two-sided accordion style book which extends to 137 cm. In acrylic paint and collage, using an Arabic calligraphy book as background imagery.

"Created as part of Al-Mutanabbi Starts Here in response to the 2007 bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street, the revered 'street of the booksellers' in Baghdad, Iraq. With special thanks to Beau Beausoleil for his tireless efforts on this important project"--Colophon.

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.

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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.