As I lament
By: Miriam Shenitzer
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library); Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Boston, MA]
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; Islamic eschatology; Artists' books
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.

"This book is based on the 6th century pre-Islamic poem of Imru' al Qays, one of seven Muallaqa or 'suspended' poems said to have been written in gold and hung on the walls of the Ka'ba in Mecca. In it, the poet describes his sadness he feels on arriving at the site abandoned by his beloved. Later I learned that the translation takes many liberties, but it's beautiful in it's own right. I also learned that 'there's a long tradition of applying the "standing by the ruins" trope to contemporary civil war contexts and other military/political disasters in the Arab world, ' so it turns out that I am following a tradition. The Arabic texts were copied by Khadijeh Mohieddin, Ali Alnamous and their 8-year-old daughter, Sandra. They are from Syria, where the suffering continues"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Materials: pencil, marker, offset onto Duralar matte acetate.

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.

"I grew up in Canada, trained in Israel, and live in Boston. My work has been shown at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Canadian National Library, the DeCordova Museum and the Norman Rockwell Museum, as well as numerous galleries in New England. My art can be found in the collections of Yale, Brown, Harvard and other universities, as well as the Fogg and Getty museums, and has appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

In English and Arabic.