Words fly away
By: C.J. Shane
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: 2013
Place of publication: Tucson, Arizona]
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; Butterflies in art; Artists' books
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.

"My book is a celebration of the enduring power of human expression. Despite efforts to suppress ideas by burning books that hold the ideas, the words carrying the ideas will always escape and live on. As first century AD Rabbi Akiba says, 'The pages burn, but the words fly away.' My book focuses on the word 'word' written in 44 languages, as we see the words fly away. They are accompanied by iridescent butterflies which guard the words' flight into a new form. In much smaller print is a listing of book burnings, ending with the latest in Mali, in 2013. The burnings are minimized by the glorious flight of enduring words"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Printed in an edition of 8.

Medium: Rives paper, ink, acrylic.

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.

Words fly away is a boustrophedon structure created from one piece of Rives Heavy Weight paper. Stamps, ink, and acrylic paint were used on interior pages to create words and images. The colophon is sewn into the book.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.

C.J. Shane is an artist and writer living in Tucson, Arizona, USA, in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. She is an oil painter, relief printmaker, and book artist. She is also the author of seven trade books.