Enghelab Avenue
By: Azadeh Fatehrad
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [London, England]
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; Streets in art; 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.

Azadeh Fatehrad is Iranian artist, based in London. Her practice demonstrates gender identity in the theme of desire and resistance. Fatehrad works with photography and video installation; expressing female desire and resistance (as a sign of sexual identification) in response to fundamental transformation between tradition and modernity. She is currently a Ph. D. candidate in Photography at the Royal College of Art London.
Notes: "Enghelab Avenue is the title of my recent series of books, which was produced as part of a group project called Al-Mutanabbi Street. In my books, I closed the distance between Al-Mutanabbi Street - a street that held bookstores - and a similar 'cultural street, ' for instance, Enghelab Avenue in Tehran (Iran). Enghelab Avenue is one of the most famous streets in the heart of Tehran, which is full of bookstores, and second-hand booksellers. It is also the street where many universities are located. These books - Enghelab Avenue I, II and III - are a combination of text and images. These were inspired by a book called 'Nadja' (1928, Andre Breton)"--Artist's personal website (viewed June 23, 2015).

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.
Table of contents: title: [Vol. 1].; title: Enghelab Avenue I -- -- [v. 2].; title: Enghelab Avenue II -- -- [v. 3].; title: Enghelab Avenue III.