Title: Bagdad reads *fragments
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.

"'Bagdad reads *fragments' is a collection of linocut printed and typewritten text fragments taken from the history of Baghdad as a centre of learning, from Iraqi poetry and descriptions of this project, An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street. The words are printed on very light, somewhat transparent paper, suggesting the fragility of the situation for the booksellers of al-Mutanabbi Street. The red of the rather messy pastepaper cover also makes reference to the destruction of the bombings"--Artist's statement from the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"With a background in art history & a particular interest in women artists, much of my work relates to art by or about women & their activities. I am also interested in the objects that have shaped us as women, particularly the power of quite primitive doll-forms"--Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts website (viewed July 8, 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, History, Artists' books
Places: Iraq, Baghdad, Baghdad (Iraq), Australia, Melbourne (Vic.), Victoria, Melbourne
People: Penny Peckham
Time periods: 21st century