Wounded book series
Subtitle: [altered books]
By: Christina Mitrentse
Contributors: Holt, John Caldwell, 1923-1985; 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; Literacy; Social aspects; Children; Knowledge and learning; Evaluation; 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.

"I have used 3 vintage 'readymade' Pelican books; a) The psychology of study, b) How children learn, c) How children fail, that have been shot with bullets, creating a physical wound in each one. This is a visual statement on the universal importance of literacy and the cultural institution, by going back to the importance of learning in the early ages of a child, something that connects all human beings. The act of attacking the book becomes a metaphor of attacking the body of knowledge as similarly happened at the Al-Mutanabbi street bombing. This is, equally for me, an attack on the human mind and body. The works I have created for 'The inventory of the Al-Mutanabbi Street' will also be added at my ongoing project initiative, 'Add To My Library' Vol. III"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Christina Mitrentse is an international multidisciplinary artist, curator and educator based in London. She has exhibited extensively in galleries, museums and public spaces, including: The Liverpool Biennial U.K., XV Biennale de Mediterranne Thessaloniki/Rome, ICA London, NDSM-werf Amsterdam, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art Greece and The Royal Academy, UK. Her work has been profiled and reviewed in major publications including AN Magazine, Frieze and InteraRtive, and has been acquired by private and public collections including Greenwich Council, The Women's Library - Goldsmiths College, Bank Street Arts Centre, Sill Library Bath, Tate Archive, Penguin Collectors Society, Griechische Kultustiftung Berlin, M. Altenman N.Y., Onassis Foundation, Beltios Collection, Benaki Museum, N. Alexiou, and E. Venizelos Airport Athens.
Notes: [Book 2] is an an altered book using John Holt's How children learn (Harmondsworth, England : Penguin Books, 1970).

Medium: Pelican classic Books bullet shoot, plastic bags.

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: [Book 1].; title: The psychology of study -- -- [Book 2].; title: How children learn -- -- [Book 3].; title: How children fail.