Intersecting words
By: Sarah Jacobs
Contributors: Ridgers, Sean, illustrator; Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Colebrooke Publications
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Bristol, England]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 36
ISBN-13: 9780956857514
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; Words in art; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: "I wrote down associations, memories, and patterns. The English and Arabic words were entered into puzzle-making software which distributed them about a grid, filling in blank spaces with random letters, junk. A puzzle-book was drafted and six people were invited to collaborate by writing or drawing or painting a response. Each contributed a unique volume. A second draft followed. Volumes from the first and second drafts are presented here. The letters are at your disposal. You can search for the words entered or find your own. But as for me, try as I may, I can never find the words to express ..."--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Illustrated by Sean Ridgers.

Medium: bright highlighter pen, fabric paint, acrylic gesso, and pencils (various), photocopy and paste, A4 printed sheets.

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.

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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.