Title: Looking backwards
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.

"A bomb explodes and everything is torn apart. The image of bits of paper flying into space resonates across cultures. Using sewn, collaged and painted vintage postcards, Stigliano's open books represent that moment of explosion. The al-Mutanabbi Street bombing is an experience that cannot be easily packaged or immediately understood. When these books are closed, the pages are mismatched, and barely contained between discarded covers. In the aftermath of violence, one does not immediately note all that is lost. Over time, as pieces of life are reassembled, little by little, one notices more that is missing. Sometimes pieces fit together, sometimes not. Regardless of how we feel, time passes. Events layer and obscure the past. Dust collects as time passes. We try to find meaning from ephemeral remains. After such a deep injustice, the mundane can become golden in contrast. These postcards are relics representing now lost, forgotten connections; a handwritten message sent and received. I am here and saying hello to you over there. In a civilized world, we trust in this connection. When major written works are lost, even minor ones take on greater significance"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
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, Cultural property, Destruction and pillage, Postcards in art, Artists' books, Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Places: Iraq, Baghdad, Massachusetts, Malden
People: Stephanie Mahan Stigliano
Time periods: 21st century