Precipitation
By: Carl Middleton
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Carl Middleton]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Braunton, Devon, 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; Alphabets; 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.

"The al-Mutanabbi Street project has bought together a community of creative practitioners. I am very pleased to be one of them. Even though the premise for why we have been brought together is negative the energy, creativity and desire to raise an understanding to the predicament the people who suffered the tragedy is a very positive one. It has also allowed me to continue and savour my relationship to books, language and the written word. I have had always had an interest in alphabets, letterform and language. I studied combined honours degree (History of Art/Graphic Arts) at Cambridge (1994 -1997) followed by Typo/graphic Studies at Masters level at London College of Printing (1998). Thereafter practicing as a designer, primarily specialising in design for arts organisations, artists and galleries. To inform my studio practice I have always made my own work - predominantly utilising letterpress but also using other forms of printmaking. The interest is scale and the work ranges in size from tiny hand made artist books through to larger site-specific installations"--Artist's statement from the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Carl Middleton is Head of the School of Art and Design, Somerset College.
Notes: Medium: Letterpress/hand-bound.

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.