Al-Mutanabbi Street
By: Sarah Bryant
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Big Jump Press; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library); Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Publisher: Big Jump Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Brighton, England?]
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; Letterpress printing; Limited editions; 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 Bryant is a letterpress printer and bookbinder specialising in the production of editioned artist's books under her imprint, Big Jump Press. These books have been featured in exhibitions around the United States and have been acquired by special collections libraries internationally, including The Yale Arts Library, The Houghton Library at Harvard University, The New York Public Library and The Darling Bio-medical Library at UCLA. In 2011, Bryant won the MCBA Prize for her book Biography. Bryant has taught book arts courses for The University of Georgia, The University of Alabama MFA in the Book Arts Program, and Wells College.
Notes: Printed in an edition of three.

"This book is a tangled list of names printed in Arabic and English, a record of the individuals who perished on March 5, 2007 on Al-Mutanabbi Street. Apart from my earnest hope to honour these dead and my revulsion at an act of violence perpetuated against an intellectual centre, I have no personal connection to Al-Mutanabbi Street or to this tragedy, and did not feel comfortable interpreting the bombing with visual imagery. I included only the names of the dead contained in a structure that I hope conveys a sense of violence and loss. Arabic and Western translations of the names emphasise the international nature of the literary and artistic community that is struggling to honour what was lost on that day"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

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.

English and Arabic.