Hers
Subtitle: a primer of sorts
By: Tia Blassingame
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Primrose Press; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Primrose Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Silver Spring, Maryland
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; Women; Books and reading; Women in art; 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.

"Hers: a primer of sorts is dedicated to the countless women for whom education and scholarship are restricted or forbidden. Despite lack of opportunity or access, threats of violence, and intimidation, these female readers gain strength and knowledge from the texts that they consume and alternately hide under clothing, farm or factory equipment, and kitchenware. This idea of limits or restrictions on access to education, particularly for women, seems like an outmoded notion. Yet globally it persists. Contemporary women from various cultures and ages find refuge in books and often at risk to their own physical or emotional safety. Detailing topography, language, population numbers, and other basic facts, the discarded pages from an outdated almanac serve as the book's cover and the female protagonist's cultural and physical landscape. Though covers depicting North America and Europe were not employed, this does not imply that obstacles to women in those regions are absent. This primer mixes ornate letter forms to create patterns and screens, the main text is concealed and revealed just as a woman or girl in any country or community might hide a book or banned text"--Artist's statement from the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Tia Blassingame is a book artist exploring the intersection of architecture, race, and perception. She received her B.A. in Architecture from Princeton, and her M.A. in Printmaking/Book Arts from Corcoran College of Art + Design. She is the Image Coordinator, Race & Ethnicity in Advertising - American: 1890 - Today at the Advertising Education Foundation, a joint project with the Smithsonian. Blassingame has been a Teaching Artist at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, the National Building Museum, University of Maryland, College Park, and a Visiting Artist at the Nature Conservancy and Wilson College. She has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo and MacDowell Colony. In 2009, she founded Primrose Press - a letterpress & book arts studio - to publish her own work and collaborations with fellow visual artists and writers. Her artists' books are in international collections such as the State Library of Queensland.
Notes: Published in an edition of 10.

Medium: digital printing on discarded maps and Japanese rice paper.

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.