Title: Three days in Baghdad
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.

"Three days in Baghdad is an attempt to juxtapose three days of impersonal news coverage with an image of Baghdad as a city of beauty and peace. It is an effort to bring to consciousness the essential nature of Baghdad which lies hidden within the seemingly endless war surrounding it"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"With more than 25 years of experience in the graphic arts, my work regularly includes using Adobe's Creative Suite, Quark XPress, and Microsoft Powerpoint. In addition to creating digital artwork, I am skilled at preparing dummies and mock-ups, cutting stencils, hand drawing, and letterpress printing, as well as photography, photo editing, color correction, and proofing. I have worked with prepress houses and printers to obtain high-quality color reproduction in the production of trade books and catalogs"--The artist's personal website (viewed June 19, 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, Letterpress printing, Artists' books, Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Places: Iraq, Baghdad, California, Oakland
People: Deborah Cowder
Time periods: 21st century