Al-Mutanabbi Street
By: Mary McCarthy ; Shirley Veenema
Contributors: Veenema, Shirley A., creator; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Mary McCarthy
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 14
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
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.
Notes: Caption title and statement of responsibility from colophon.

"This leporello book is a circular narrative of destruction and rebirth, entered by either cover. Panoramas of place and events capture the irrepressible nature of words, thoughts, and ideas. To produce our images we each used research to arrive at a single image, to which the other responded visually. Original paper collage images were scanned, reordered, and printed in folios. Folios were glued to produce a double-sided accordion of 14 pages. The final book is printed in an edition of 10 and 5 lettered artist proofs."--CFPR Books Arts website.

On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Mutanabbi Street, the centuries-old center of bookselling in Baghdad. Soon afterwards, an international group of poets, writers, artists, letterpress printers, booksellers, and readers gathered to create the Mutanabbi Street Coalition, in response not only to the tragic loss of life, but also to the idea of a targeted attack on a street where ideas have always been exchanged. The coalition's goal was to respond to the tragedy with positive creativity: by printing broadsides featuring the work of Iraqi poets and supporting Doctors Without Borders. The broadsides are part of the project known as Mutanabbi Street Starts Here.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.