An inventory
By: Sarah Bodman
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Sarah Bodman]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [Bristol]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 130
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; 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.

"Sarah's artists' books are included in many international collections such as Tate Britain, the British Library and the V & A Museum, All Saints Library and Winchester School of Art, UK; Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, Yale Centre for British Art, MOMA, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Mills College and Rhode Island School of Design USA; Museum van het Boek and AKI (ArtEz) The Netherlands; Biblioteca Casanatense, Italy; Southern Cross University, Lismore and Institute of the Arts, Canberra, Australia"--University of Puget Sound website (viewed June 1, 2015).
Notes: Published in an edition of 3, plus open edition formats in hard copy and e-book application.

"A text-based response to the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street, the street of booksellers in Baghdad on 5 March 2007 ... 130 pages, one for each person of the 130 people killed or wounded in the explosion"--The Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website (viewed June 1, 2015).

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.