My poem becomes theirs
By: by Helga Butzer Felleisen
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Wormhoudt, Arthur, translator; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Helga Butzer Felleisen]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [Brookline, 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; Artists' books; Vellum printed books; Memory in art; 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.

"Memory has always intrigued her. Stateless at birth and an immigrant, Helga grew up between cultures. While traveling, especially as a student of Classical Archaeology, she cultivated a keen awareness of other cultural traditions. She collects traditional Greek and Turkish crafts. Made by hand, they retain memories of those who made them. The calm, repetitive motions that produced them resonate with her. Like shadows in the cave, Helga's art engages memory. Her work is conceptual. It references history and culture. It is contemplative. Although her practice includes a variety of mediums, vellum is her primary material. Smooth, translucent and white, it reflects light. Similar to an archaeological excavation, she cuts away to reveal lines extracted from man-made patterns or drawn from nature. Installed, her work shifts between the disciplines of drawing, sculpture and installation. Cut lines become narrative as air currents, light and vellum intersect. A universal element, water figures frequently as imagery. To Helga, the rhythm of the sea evokes emotions, thoughts and recollections. The tide carves out and fills in again. It binds past with present. Felleisen received her Diploma ('06) and Fifth Year Certificate ('07) from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She shows her artwork in solo and group exhibitions. It is included in public and private collections. Helga works in arts-related positions, most recently as coordinator of Hyde Park Open Studios in Boston. She lives in York, Maine, and maintains a studio in Hyde Park"--The artist's personal website (viewed June 23, 2015).
Notes: Printed in an edition of 5.

Material is hand-cut vellum.

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.

"Mashrabiya, carved screens that ventilate and filter light, are commonplace in the Near East. In Iraq, they are often called shanasheel or 'hanging silk.' My poem becomes theirs is a metaphorical screen. Hand-cut panels of vellum allow me, an outsider, to peer into the world of the booksellers' street. Scroll and pages cross time. Allusion is made to the hanging poems at Mecca. A couplet by al-Mutanabbi emphasises the bond between reader and written word: 'My poem becomes theirs in its setting, On beauty's neck adorned with necklace.' Excisions - marking what is lost - collect on the floor. Clear and elusive, projections of text opalesce like pearls. (The poem is poem 112 of the al-Shawmiyat of the Diwan. Translation by Arthur Wormhoudt, The Diwan of Abu Tayyib Ahmed ibn al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi, 2002)"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.