Falling gently
by Mavina Baker
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'm an artist printmaker based in Wiltshire making limited edition prints and books in my garden studio. All my work is original, the matrix is designed and made by me and I also print each piece. When I make a print the blocks are inked up, using light fast, oil based inks and applied with a roller to the surface of the block. Paper is then placed on the block and pressure applied by hand or by printing press to transfer the ink from the block to the paper. This is not the same as mass produced reproductions which use scanning technology to copy work, producing numerous, digitally reproduced, identical copies for sale as limited edition prints"--The artist's personal website (viewed May 11, 2015).
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Printed in an edition of 3 copies.
Concertina book consists of relief, letterpress & digital print on Saunders Waterford 190g HP paper.
"The project is both a lament and a commemoration of the singular power of words; words said, words not said, words remembered. The targeted attack on this 'street of the booksellers, ' such indiscriminate brute force to maim and kill, is ultimately futile. Books and libraries have been destroyed countless times, since 48 BC with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, through Nazis Germany, up to and including al-Mutanabbi Street. But, books will persevere because of the people who make them. And, as reliable as the turning of the seasons, more poets, writers, artists and philosophers will bring their ideas into the light"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website (viewed May 11, 2015).
On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.
Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.
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