Title: Wounded book series
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.

"I have used 3 vintage 'readymade' Pelican books; a) The psychology of study, b) How children learn, c) How children fail, that have been shot with bullets, creating a physical wound in each one. This is a visual statement on the universal importance of literacy and the cultural institution, by going back to the importance of learning in the early ages of a child, something that connects all human beings. The act of attacking the book becomes a metaphor of attacking the body of knowledge as similarly happened at the Al-Mutanabbi street bombing. This is, equally for me, an attack on the human mind and body. The works I have created for 'The inventory of the Al-Mutanabbi Street' will also be added at my ongoing project initiative, 'Add To My Library' Vol. III"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Christina Mitrentse is an international multidisciplinary artist, curator and educator based in London. She has exhibited extensively in galleries, museums and public spaces, including: The Liverpool Biennial U.K., XV Biennale de Mediterranne Thessaloniki/Rome, ICA London, NDSM-werf Amsterdam, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art Greece and The Royal Academy, UK. Her work has been profiled and reviewed in major publications including AN Magazine, Frieze and InteraRtive, and has been acquired by private and public collections including Greenwich Council, The Women's Library - Goldsmiths College, Bank Street Arts Centre, Sill Library Bath, Tate Archive, Penguin Collectors Society, Griechische Kultustiftung Berlin, M. Altenman N.Y., Onassis Foundation, Beltios Collection, Benaki Museum, N. Alexiou, and E. Venizelos Airport Athens.
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, Literacy, Social aspects, Children, Knowledge and learning, Evaluation, Artists' books, Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Places: Iraq, Baghdad, England, London
People: Christina Mitrentse
Time periods: 21st century