Bookseeds I
Subtitle: [altered book]
By: Nancy Bardos ; graphic designer, Judy Scott Novak
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Novak, Judy Scott, graphic designer; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Ashland, OR]
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; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Other titles: Bookseeds one; Book seeds
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.

Nancy Bardos has had a lifelong pursuit of photography. In recent years, she has added mixed media and artists' books to her repertoire. Following course work at La Romita School of Art in Italy, she assisted in managing Gallery DeForest in Ashland, Oregon, co-hosting shows dedicated to mixed media and works on paper. Thus began a collaboration partnership with owner, Cathy DeForest. Besides work with visual arts, the pair started a winter series of poetry readings and a citywide happening every April called 'Poets on the Loose' to celebrate National Poetry Month.
Notes: Medium: deconstructed book (Goethe. Thomas, circa 1930s), book pages, inks, printed graphics, coffee stir sticks.

"Lovers of books. Those were the people who populated al-Mutanabbi Street for centuries, gathering to buy and sell books, to read and discuss the ideas and ideals their authors extolled. All that ceased on a dark and dangerous day in March 2007. Through my artists' books, I honor the human lives lost and the unimaginable suffering that occurred that day. I pay homage to the sharing of ideas and the freedom to explore cultures, opinions, art and history that the al-Mutanabbi Street book lovers hungered for and embraced. In the beginning, I had difficulty defacing the books used in my project. But by doing so I watched them slowly transform into symbols of the renewal and rebirth that will surely happen no matter how many books are banned or burned or blown up due to narrow worldviews. I relish the process and the certainty that the roots and seeds of ideas will always yield harvests. Writers will always write. Readers will always read their words"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website (viewed May 13, 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.