Chronotope
By: Jennifer Caine
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: 2012
Place of publication: [Austin, Texas?]
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; Artists' books; Space and time in art; Memory in art; Paper; Printing properties; 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.

"Chronotope is a literary term used to describe the link between time and space in language. My cut paper book by the same name was made in response to the 2007 bombing of al-Mutannabi Street and seeks to capture the sense of time suspended that I imagine in the first moments following the bombing. The immediate aftermath of a tragic event is often marked by a sense of dreamlike awareness. I attempt to describe this psychological state through the progression, repetition, and layering of passages of cut marks. The laser-cut marks, like scars on the page, have charred edges evocative of the burned paper of books destroyed during the bombing, and they create a non-objective narrative in which spaces appear to crystallize on the verge of dissolving. As I imagine the charred paper remnants of destroyed books coalescing and scattering in the air of Al-Mutanabbi street, the marks in Chronotope gather and disperse, recalling the fusing of past and present, time and space, in that incomprehensible moment"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"I am interested in the process of memory formation, recall, and reconsolidation, and specifically in how the contours of memories change when revisited, altered by the present and by the very act of remembering. Using paint, cut paper, and the drawn or etched mark, I explore this idea through my process and interaction with my materials, working both additively and reductively to create images that possess the fluid and labile quality of memory. The accumulation of layers and marks crystallize to create a bridge between my initial inspiration and the physical reality of the piece"--The artist's personal website (viewed June 16, 2015).
Notes: Printed in an edition of five.

Medium: Laser-cut Arches paper in a cherry wood box (21 x 29 x 6 cm). Each page measures approximately 18 x 26 cm.

Leaves tied between two clear plastic boards, etched with title and colophon: front board: "Chronotope;" rear board: "Chronotope was made in 2012 by Jennifer Caine in an edition of five. The images are laser-cut Arches watercolor paper, presented a cherry wood box."

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.