Title: War and peace
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.

"Creating my 3 books, I used handmade paper in a miniature format ... an intimate narrative with a quote by Al Mutanabbi: 'If you see the teeth of the lion, do not think the lion is smiling at you.' I included other quotes by writers and philosophers concerning the futility of war throughout the ages. I burned fragments of the paper I made, and attached the fragments to the pages of each book ... destruction in the midst of poetry and enlightenment"--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, American Collage, War in art, Peace in art, Miniature books, Assemblage (Art), Artists' books
Places: Iraq, Baghdad, California, Santa Monica
People: Elena Mary Siff
Time periods: 21st century