Rebinding
By: Andrew Morrison
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Andrew Morrison]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Stroud, Gloucestershire, 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; Narrative art; English Narrative poetry; 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.

"Books are amongst the most precious and the most vulnerable of our artefacts. The need to restore seems to me to be a defining human activity. The tools of the trade are almost universal, yet they are ensouled by individual usage and marks of ownership and to create metaphors from these things is a natural extension of our familiarity with shape and function. 'Rebinding' remarks on the ephemeral nature of paper and cloth and contrasts this with the desire to rebuild and remake: attributes that are enduring"--Statement from the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Morrison studied at Leicester Polytechnic (BA Illustration) and postgraduate study at UCE, Birmingham and Buckingham Chilterns University (MA Printmaking). Recent exhibitions include: 'Artists' books' at the Baltic, Gateshead, 'The reading room' at Sherborne House, Dorset; 'Binding' at the Picture House Gallery, Leicester and the 'Small words' solo touring exhibition, London. Morrison founded the Art School Press at Stroud College in '02, and is currently setting up a press and printmaking workshop at Frith Wood, Gloucestershire.

"I have made books for a number of years as part of an ongoing concern with narrative art and with the diverse potentials within image/text combinations. Gradually, books have become my major concern; combining interests in print, typography and narrative poetry and a preference for the intimate and revelatory slow turn of the page over the capacious arena of the gallery. I believe in the artist having control over each element of book production; that the author should also be typesetter and binder. I write short poetic statements; I find texts or discover links between images; the books are vehicles for these simple narratives"--The artist's website (viewed July 6, 2015).
Notes: Medium/Images: Gum Arabic print; text: letterpress.

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.