Slow wind
By: Naomi Sultanik
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [N. Sultanik]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Amsterdam, Netherlands]
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; Ontology; Collage; Conceptual art; 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.

"Al-Mutanabbi Street resounds in all of us - events intersect, fragments of a moment stuffed into a pocket filter memory erase disbelief. The title Slow wind refers to the inevitability and process of change. Conceived as book/object, I intermingled tactile, abstract and textual elements reflecting upon personal journeys, reading and encounters. The banalities that acknowledge our existence"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Naomi Sultanik makes mixed media paintings, drawings and objects where process and material initiate a dialogue into the nature and boundaries of natural forces - habitual form; landscape - narrative. The intuitive juxtaposition of material, text and gesture often come together as installations. Her work has been shown in museums, galleries and alternative spaces in the Netherlands and U.S. since the 80's. She has given interactive workshops addressing issues of homelessness and illegal immigration, and taught drawing at Orange County Community College (Monroe, NY). She lives and works in Amsterdam.
Notes: Medium/materials: Two-sided fold-out, which can open to 120 cm. Slight variations in each of 3 books. Mixed media covers. Pages, ink-jet prints of collage (side 1), drawings/text (side 2).

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.

Primarily in English, with some Arabic and French.