Title: StreetView
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.

"StreetView's pages are purposefully blank because there are no more pages on Al-Mutanabbi street. The pages grey color and nubby pattern reference the color of smoke and the texture of rubble. The book's pristine facade will soon discolor from dirty hands and oily fingerprints. The cover will slowly transition from blank and story-less into a perfect patina of interaction and grubby exploration. Books should be read, city streets should be walked on, booksellers should feel safe to sell their books. Like al-Mutanabbi Street, StreetView is waiting for a new story, a transformation"--Statement from artist's website.
Subjects: Violence, Bombings, Iraq War, 2003-2011, Protest movements, Books and reading in art, Booksellers and bookselling, Intellectual life, Social conditions, Censorship, Terrorism in art, Artists' books, Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Places: Iraq, Baghdad, United States
People: Kerri Cushman, Anna Cox
Time periods: 21st century