Al-Mutanabbi Street
Subtitle: a handmade book
By: by Rae Trujillo
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [R. Trujillo]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Pleasant Hill, CA]
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; Oppression (Psychology); Hand in art; Blood in art; Future in art; Plexiglas; 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.

Rae Trujillo received her BA from California State University Hayward with an emphasis in sculpture. Making books satisfies her interest in story-telling, and gives her passions a place to be shared. She is intrigued by structures, and likes to experiment with a variety of materials. She mingles many disciplines into one art form. She is challenged to create books that people can fall into and understand.
Notes: Edition of 10.

Materials: Plexiglas, ink, adhesive bandages.

"When I committed to work on the Al-Mutanabbi Street Project, I literally dreamed of white handprints on Plexiglas. It is important for me to touch as broad an audience as possible. I wanted anyone in any language and any background to feel what happened, it is a crime against us all. The book has many layers of meaning, such as a black handprint for oppression, red for the bloodshed, and white for the future, and what is possible. The book is transparent, a metaphor for behaviours. It allows light to pass through, but it also reflects. When the book is closed, you see layers of handprints. Then the accordion folds out to reveal many handprints and letters fly across the page and words unravel. When the book closes, we are all one, once more. When we ponder and share the memory of Al Mutanabbi Street, it lives"--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.