Al-Mutanabbi Street
By: Batool Showghi
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library); Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: United Kingdom]
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; Identity (Psychology) in art; Memory in art; Loss (Psychology) in art; War in art; Social movements in art; Artists' books
Other titles: Broken.
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.

"What happened on Al-Mutanabbi Street is like an old wound for me. It makes me recall what happened in Iran 30 years ago, and again once more in recent years Iranian people demonstrating and struggling for the right to vote for democracy. What happened on Al-Mutanabbi Street keeps happening in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria. My first book depicts a collection of photographs of the Iranian green movement for reform, with pictures from Neda and Sohrab, who were unjustly killed during these demonstrations. The second book starts with the words: 'Broken, broken, broken, ' and wants to show how normal people's lives, loves, dreams are shattered and destroyed when a war breaks out"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: 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.

"I was born in Iran and moved to England in 1985. I received a merit for my MA in Design & Media Arts from the University of Westminster in 1997, just after finishing my BA honours. I am a multidisciplinary artist, and my work moves between photography, illustration, painting and textiles evolving from single images to artists' books, images in boxes and mixed media pieces. My work has been exhibited since 1988 here and abroad. Recently I have shown in London at: the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Harrow Open Studios, The Asia House Fair, London Art Book Fairs and in Yerevan, Armenia. I have also exhibited in museums, galleries and universities, e.g., The Royal Navy Museum, Portsmouth and the Phoenix Art Gallery, Brighton. My work can be found in public and private collections, e.g. Tate Britain, The Royal Navy Museum (five books for the 'New Found Treasures' exhibition) and the Aaron Gallery in Tehran. My artwork is concerned with memory, identity and loss. My vocabulary is diverse and I transform documents, calligraphy, portraits, patterns and everyday objects into beautiful and densely layered pieces or artists' books. I work with photographs, digital manipulation, fabric, stitching, paint and paper to produce my unique and individual images and pieces in a process that has become a ritualised activity"--The artist's website (viewed July 20, 2015).