Title: Details from life
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 am not a political artist, but thinking about the cowardly bombing on al-Mutanabbi Street reminded me that sometimes the most subversive approach we can take to win over minds is to show normalcy of a benign kind. My book documents some of my sketching adventures at the 2011 Minnesota State Fair. Every year Minnesotans exercise the right and privilege of congregating in public and exchanging ideas, from serious and frivolous. It is my fervent hope that someday people everywhere can enjoy the same expectations in their daily lives. The book is a secular prayer"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"Roz Stendahl (BA English, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia; MA English, Univ. of Minnesota) is a graphic designer, illustrator, and writer who has worked in publishing for over 20 years. Initially her work involved copyediting and production management in college textbooks. In 1987, Roz started her own design and full-service production company, Dapper Design. She has designed over 300 college textbooks, as well as created illustrations for textbooks and magazines. Roz has taught adult and children's classes in a variety of subjects including writing, literature, journaling, book arts, and digital art, for 20 years. In 1998, she was one of 10 artists selected by Intermedia Arts for the inaugural year of their Artists in the Schools Program. Roz has provided workshops in Minnesota public schools in book arts, digital arts, and journaling. Roz has written numerous articles for a variety of national and trade magazines on topics as diverse as colon cancer, training dogs to track, and how to use colored pencils. She studied scriptwriting at Film in the Cities, and is a member of Minnesota Screenwriters' Workshop"--The artist's website (viewed July 22, 2015).
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, Artists' books, Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Places: Iraq, Baghdad, Minnesota, Minneapolis
People: Roz Stendahl
Time periods: 21st century