Book cache
By: Anita Singh
Contributors: 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: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada]
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; Cultural property; Destruction and pillage; Flag books (Toy and movable books); 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.

"As a visual artist, book artist, papermaker, printmaker and lover of books, I am grateful for this opportunity to create book arts that reflect my desire to preserve and protect books as I know them. Learning about the destruction of this core historic centre for books made me anxious, my thoughts were how do I conserve my cherished collection of books. I collected words that describe some of the various types of books that I adore, and I used the flag book design to shelve these various words. Book cache is a collection of types of books that can be safely stored away for future use. Encasing Book cache with clay covers was my solution to preservation. In my work, I strive to give the observer a sense of time, place, and memory through imagery, colour and texture. I often work in several forms of printmaking at once, including collagraph, etching, monotype and relief as well as other mediums that include painting, collage, ruth hook, encaustic and clay. My compositions reveal an inner order or emotional logic to my observed world. Many of my artworks are compositions built up in sections the natural world and comprises of elements that form distinct and perceptible patterns. Both ordered and chaotic in structure, these patterns embody elements of time, space and chance. The organisation and layering of these patterns generates inner structures that form the basis of my work"--Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"Anita Singh was born in Guyana, South America with a Russian and Indian bloodline. She grew up in Montreal and Toronto, where she studied graphic design and printmaking, and lived in British Columbia for 10 years, working as a graphic designer and visual artist. She has done internships and apprenticeships in book arts, paper-making, and printmaking, in both New York State and England. During a cross Canada trip in 1999, she discovered and fell in love with Newfoundland. She lives with her husband and son in downtown St. John's, where she works as a printmaker, mixed media artist, and art instructor"--Running the Goat Books & Broadsides website (viewed July 20, 2015).
Notes: Printed in an edition of 20.

Medium/Materials: Flag book design; inside is monotype on Arches 250gsm; text is serigraph on papers vary (mostly Arches 250gsm); covers vary (handmade papers, found papers, collagraph, relief and monotype). Various printmaking techniques bound in a flag-book design, using archival papers and inks.

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.