Tikilluarit
By: typography, printing and binding style by Roni Gross ; bound by Biruta Auna ; waxed linen wrap by Peter Schell ; poem by Nancy Campbell
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Auna, Biruta, book artist; Schell, Peter, book artist, sculptor; Campbell, Nancy, 1978- poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Z'roah Press; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Z'roah Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: New York City, NY
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; Language and languages 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.

Roni Gross is a book artist who trained first as a musician, and then as a choreographer. She is interested in the theatre of the book, its pacing, the music of language, and the resonance of colour. She has been issuing multiples for 24 years under the imprint Zitouna, and limited edition letterpress printed books which are collaborations with the sculptor Peter Schell under the press name Z'roah. Roni Gross co-published The Vandercook Book, with Barbara Henry, in honour of the 100th anniversary of the Vandercook press and a show of its contents traveled the country. She currently teaches at The Center for Book Arts and has done workshops at Penland, Pratt, and The New School. Her work is in the collections of The New York Public Library, The Library of Congress, Harvard, and many other public and private collections.
Notes: Printed in an edition of ten copies; numbers one through five are standard editions, and the first three are part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Project. Numbers six through ten are deluxe editions.

Materials: calfskin binding, Mitsumata paper, letterpress printed text, waxed linen wrap.

"The text is a poem entitled The Hunter Teaches Me To Speak, by Nancy Campbell"--Colophon.

"Tikilluarit speaks to the fact that language is irrepressible. The book will not lay flat. It is an intimate work that takes its scale from the human body, and contrasts it with the little known culture of Greenland, which could easily stand for any culture which is foreign to us. Learning another language means understanding the foundations of a culture, its evocative past, as well as its aspirations for the future. It requires a sensitivity to the body and its ability to make sounds. Beginning on a potentially violent note, the book provides a window into the desires and frustrations that come along with learning, and spreads out to include the natural world. Tikilluarit is the word for welcome in Kalaallisut, the native language of Greenland"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

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.