An evening about Al-Mutanabbi Street

On Tuesday, the culmination of considerable planning - the event at the Iraqi Cultural Centre to commemorate  the bombing on the "street of the booksellers" in Baghdad. Three books that had survived(?) the bombing were present -

14 UK book artists sent or brought books for the display - thanks to Sarah Jacobs, Wuon-Gean Ho, Hazel Grainger, Karen Apps, Christina Mitrentse, Libby Scarlett, Jane Kenelly, Angie Butler, Ama Bolton, Noelle Griffiths, Gwen Simpson, Batool Showghi, Linda Toigo, Christine Pereira-Adams, Janet Bradley. (I had a book there too.) You can find the books in the galleries here.

It wasn't an ideal position for the display, given that people were using the corridor to get to their seats - on the other hand, there was much stopping and looking -

photo: Sabine Thoele

Miriam Halahmy reads; with journalist Waheda Al-Mikdadi

The audience was a good size, interested in and affected by the poetry readings (in English and Arabic) -

photo: Sabine Thoele

The main organiser was Janet Bradley, whose words of introduction were also poetic -

The readers were Miriam Halahmy, Fred Feigel - an MA student at SOAS who read a poem by Iraq's most famous poet, Al-Mutanabbi (10th century) - and Adnan Al-Sayegh (more of his work here), with translations read by David Bradley. Ibtesam Al-Tahir read from her article about the owner of the legendary Shabandar cafe, who lost six members of the family; when the cafe was destroyed, he said was like losing another family member. We watched a short film by Amal Al-Jubouri, and I said a few words along the lines of "what is an artists book" -

photo: Sabine Thoele

Another important aspect of the evening was conversation -

photo: Sabine Thoele

Afterward, I was so busy yomping down a tasty plate of Iraqi food that I forgot to take a photo, but there were two kinds of kibbeh, which added another dimension to Miriam's poem about watching her mother-in-law make kibbeh.

Tony Wallis took a video of the evening, and edited it; divided into six parts, it's now (Sept13) on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM1kFbayABGNNWam9sbR1ug

Meanwhile, in Manchester, at the exhibition of Al-Mutanabbi Street project books at the John Rylands Library, about 20 people attended a tour of the exhibition - Ama Bolton writes about it here.

The forthcoming event in Newcastle (in August) is mentioned on Theresa Easton's blog, which has good links -

http://theresaeaston.wordpress.com/al-mutanabbi-street-starts-here/
(update:  since the exhibition opened, at the beginning of August, she's written various blog posts on it, for example
http://theresaeaston.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/an-inventory-of-al-mutanabbi-street-2/)

The Al-Mutanabbi Street project has been written about in the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-stambler/al-mutanabbi-street_b_1316997.html

"This is where we live"

Stop-motion animation made for the 25th anniversary of Fourth Estate publishers. It features books, and characters cut from the pages - and London scenes ... charming ... watch it at http://vimeo.com/2295261

As I'm involved in an Al-Mutanabbi Street-related event next week, the role of reading and pervasiveness of reading and books in various cultures is very much on my mind. This little film is a million miles from Al-Mutanabbi Streett in many ways, including the reason for its origin - but in its integration of books into everyday life, its underlying assumption that "readerishness" permeates modern culture, it's very relevant. The scenes and activities could be, are, happening anywhere that "we" live.

Rawan's vision

Two stills from a video of a "read-in" that happened after Al-Mutanabbi Street - the street of the booksellers in Iraq - was bulldozed by the government for the second time, after trying to rebuild itself after the 2007 bombing. 

"Within twelve days of the attack [on September 17, 2012], people were able to organize a peaceful book festival event that was held on September 29, 2012, with the title: I AM IRAQI, I READ. Private citizens brought book donations to the festival where people gathered on the green in a peaceful demonstration and a defiant public-read-in, to say we will continue reading in public, defying the abhorrent official political attempts of organized suppression of freedom of thought, reading and knowledge in Iraq. We are doing this for our children to enable them to rebuild the future Iraq."

Watch the video, and hear Rawan's stirring speech (she is one articulate kid!), at youtube.com/watch?v=nALIE5MGNU0

Book exhibit at John Rylands Library, Manchester

Beau Beausoleil, the San Francisco bookseller and poet who has worked tirelessly on the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project, sent out this email today to participants in the project. (He says it so much better than I can.) He encourages us to "make a great deal of noise about this exhibit" - which I am only too happy to do. When some of the books were exhibited at the Westminster Reference Library last year, it was a wonderful display - such care and ingenuity were evident in the making of these books. An anthology of writing, going back to the start of the project, has been published - click here and "look inside" to read The Bookseller's Story, written shortly after the event.

"The al-Mutanabbi Street printer and book artist Annette Disslin (Germany) has posted a beautiful blog entry marking the opening of the al-Mutanabbi Street exhibit at the John Rylands Library (Manchester, UK) today.

 

www.disslin-an.net:

The exhibit is beginning with about 150 artists' books, but the John Rylands will be adding books to the exhibit as Sarah Bodman and I forward them additional project books as they arrive. The next four months will see the exhibit swell to our goal of 260 artists books.

 

If you are in the U.K. you have what I would describe as a 'moral duty' to sally forth and see this exhibit. These are your kin, your sister and brother book artists from around the globe who have made al-Mutanabbi Street start at the door of the John Rylands. As a poet I have always had a fondness for pilgrimages and pilgrims, please become one for this exhibit, get there by foot, bus, train, auto, or plane, get there early or late, and leave a cairn so other pilgrims will see that you have been to al-Mutanabbi Street!!

 

And I would encourage you to make a great deal of noise about this exhibit whether by facebook, youtube, your blog, telephone, twitter, or local newsprint. Spread the word!! Travel there with friends and family. And remember, the John Rylands and Sarah are still open to book art related ideas that might help enhance the exhibit during its run at the John Rylands."

Do go to Annette's blog and look at the images in her post. Or go to the website that Sarah Bodman has compiled, with images of all the books in the project - http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/mutanmain12.htm

The exhibition in Manchester is at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, until July 29th. In London, we're planning a poetry reading on the anniversary of the bombing (5 March) that will have a book display as well - more news on that later.

Al-Mutanabbi Street book collection

You can see all the books submitted to the Al-Mutanabbi Street project at bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/mutanmain12.htm - which lists the exhibition venues, in the UK and elsewhere.

Thumbnails on the three gallery pages can be clicked to show details of the books and to get the description and further information about each one. (I chose this screenshot because, ahem, my book is in it...top right ...)

Each is worth a closer look.

The background to the project is at al-mutanabbistreetstartshere-boston.com, and that site has a lot more information but doesn't yet include the artists who submitted their books in December.

With the sixth anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad's literary and intellectual centre (in which 130 people were killed or injured) coming up - 5th March - some of us in London are trying to arrange a poetry reading and small display of the books. Arranging this is certainly a learning curve! Readings elsewhere in previous years can be seen here.

Online article about the al-Mutanabbi Street project

...on The Economist's books, arts, and culture blog. Read it at economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/12/al-mutanabbi-street-starts-here.

Personal stories bring the project close to us. "Lutfiya al-Dulaima, an Iraqi fiction writer now living in Jordan, wrote affectingly about the significance of the street to all writers. “I was a mere small woman without a place in this world. Then I was born on al-Mutanabbi Street the day my first book was published,” she writes. Ms al-Dulaima recently reported on the project for a Baghdad newspaper, but she says it is still little-known in Iraq."

The exhibition schedule, which now extends to 2014, is here.

Book du jour - reading rooms

ready for sewing

Both sides of the accordion are ready. At the bottom (forming the skirting board in the "rooms") is written: "A house without books is like a room without windows" over-written by "A book is a room full of riches".

When you're in a hurry and don't remember to check and recheck, this is what can happen -

mis-match - unpicking needed!

After the sewing, the covers were glued on - and the edges of the paper gone over with a black felt pen (that made a subtle but surprising difference, but isn't apparent in the photos) -

preliminary work and extras

To hold the book closed, a band goes around it - inside which the two quotes written into the rooms were printed. Of course this needed experimentation too, not just for the patterning and to decide the width but to get the length of the band right and to centre the quotes -

The final books, mixing and mingling -

Another way of displaying  the book - the rooms become a "cultural bridge" -

My books have joined the other contributions to the project and I've had confirmation that they are now in Bristol. 

141 of the books have already been added to the online inventory - these are some examples -

The first UK show of all 262 books, and associated book arts events, will run from 6 February to 29 July 2013, at the John Rylands Library, Manchester. In the USA, the San Francisco Center for the Book will show a selection of 40 books from An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street from 1 February to 26 April 2013, and the Center for Book Arts in New York will exhibit An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street, from 10 July to 14 September 2013.

Book du jour - inside the reading rooms

With the paper folded and cut (cutting became another catalogue of errors!), and the rubbings of "page edges" added to put some "architectural detail" into the rooms, the next decision is what kind of writing to add. The maquette was a way of trying out some single words at the top, almost hidden in the graphite, and some short sentences at bottom, written so they would go around each separate room -

I tried various styles in various inks, using a dip pen and random words -

Writing? Printing? India ink? Quink (for that faded look...) A bit of red? The painted surface of the paper makes it harder to write on ... will whatever I do look too clumsy?

Before sewing the strips together, I suddenly had the idea to add lines, like writing on the page of a book, to some of the rooms, and to some of the "walls" of the rooms - like windows or doors -

Is it a matter - especially in light of the deadline - of "less is more" and "if in doubt, leave it out" -?

What remains to be done? Adding words (or not) to the three "real" books; deciding on, making, and attaching the covers; making a band to wrap round each book; filling in the submission form - and sending them off.

One way of looking at the many decisions involved in bringing a project into its final format is to consider them as possibilities for use in future projects - or even for sparking of an entire project from just one of the possibilities. Exciting as the prospect of continuing with some of these may be, it is now two days before the books must be sent off, there still seems to be a lot to do, and I'm entirely ready to be finished with this project and start thinking about mundane things ... xmas, even...

Book du jour - reading rooms

From three or four pages of this useful book (subtitle: Why books matter in a distracted time), come some possible words for inside the "rooms". Making the list was a chance to practice some different letter shapes. I'm planning to pair the words, and present the pairs rather like headwords on dictionary pages, but not in alphabetical order ... that plan could change. Thanks to Irene's comment yesterday, I've been thinking about why some words might be written/printed in colour.

This morning I struggled with accurate folding, and managed to get as far as cutting up one set of pages for experimenting (more) with the inside of the rooms. The sunlight shows up the wax resist and the two layers of ink -

Book du jour - reading rooms

Two stages of making the outside of the "rooms" - graphite rubbing of the wall and the fingerplate and keyhole on the door, and the inking up, first with indian ink and then quink -

This became three stages when I added rubbing with the end of a wax candle - it leaves the white dotty marks -

 More rubbings inside the rooms, and if you look closely you'll see single words added to each page -

 Now the hard part - accurately folding the sheets of paper. They are quite thick, thanks to the emulsion paint on the other side. Fold before cutting, or cut before folding?

Inking up this sheet, I accidentally used indian ink for both layers on the left half. All the graphite got covered,  and needed to be added afterwards. I was surprised that the "under-writing" showed so well, and am tempted to re-do the Quink pages. The waxed areas show through in a different, more mysterious way.

Also there's the small matter of which words to use, inside the rooms. Raising my eyes from the computer screen to the bookshelf above it, I see "The Lost Art of Reading" (by David L. Ulin); five lines read at random yield:  anonymous, comment, innuendo, noise, disputes, constant - this book, faut de mieux, will be the source of the words... but how many, and which, should be in colour?

Book du jour - reading rooms

As the deadline for the Al-Mutanabbi Street project books gets ever nearer, progress continues to be inexplicably slow. I'm simply not spending enough hours on this ... am thinking, rather than doing. (Sometimes, though, things have their seasons and reasons - is this one of them?)

Inside the "rooms" will go rubbings of page edges, and a few words. Some experiments with rubbings show that 4B graphite looks better than 9B; that care is needed; that there will be variation from room to room, but not always.

The mouldings round doors, of course, is what is being referenced -

Are they too culturally specific? Does that matter?

Now some words, a few words, are needed. What will they be? I am making a list of the qualities of books and of the qualities, or perhaps properties, of rooms. Of course there are other possibilities, and many choices to be made even from a list. These pages, these rooms, need only a very few words.

Another series of decisions involves the format of the words - handwritten, typed, collaged, rubbed, embossed ... and should all or some or none be in colour?

Book du jour - reading rooms

Adding some writing (embossed) and rubbing (graphite) to the inside of the rooms -

 9B graphite is too dark - and the "white" writing too hard to read -

 Trying out more graphite - a sort of door - on the outside - and some writing around it -

That door could be patterned...

Book du jour - reading rooms

 Putting books inside the rooms doesn't seem to work - not in this format anyway.

Back to the drawing board! Simplify, simplify....

Book du jour - reading rooms

Inside the rooms - rubbings of the edges of pages - they have quite a Cubist/Futurist feel... -

 The "rooms" will just about stay quietly as square shapes -

 When they do stay square, they can go at right angles -

 But they are difficult to keep in position. Whereas in making this arch -

the book flops open and the "rooms" keep their shape via the tension on the structure.

Some parts of the paper have puncturing, and there's even a bit of stitching here and there. I'm thinking about the "meaning" (if any!) of those sorts of marks.

To avoid the drip of dye into the "inside", using clean newspaper for each sheet won't be enough; preparing a large sheet of paper and cutting it into strips, or cutting off the edges of strips, is also part of the plan. Or a thicker, denser paper might not let ink seep through. I'd like a paper that's smooth on the inside and rough on the outside - is there such a thing?

Book du jour - reading rooms

One idea for my books for the al-Mutanabbi Street Project was to use double-fold accordion to make "a street of rooms" - and finally I sewed together the papers I'd assembled for a try-out of the concept.

The sewing was very awkward! The origami papers were joined with tape, which made things worse - so I cut them apart and tipped them in once the fold had been sewn. The yellow paper looks smaller because it is - I wanted to see what happens with smaller and smaller "rooms" - how does this affect what you might be able to put on the inside of the outer paper, or even on the other side of the wall of the room?

On checking the instructions for the book with just one layer of paper, I saw that you're meant to fold the two strips of (white, in this case) paper together for sewing at each fold - then reverse the fold on one of the strips of paper to make  the structure. Well, I'll try that next time - it definitely sounds more straightforward, more do-able, than my current attempt.

Dyeing and inking of paper continues - I've rigged up a line with clips to hold the paper while drying -

These are for a single-layer double accordion fold book - the inside of the pages has a bit of collage and a bit of frottage. I thought the collage would make the paper (re-used photocopies) more substantial, but it doesn't really. And the ink seeps through the thin paper. One discovery is that the black areas of the photocopy resist the dye and ink - the areas with graphite frottage make quite a rich surface.

Inside these "rooms" will be patterns made from rubbings of the edges of pages -

Without the cover at either end, this is one maquette for "street of reading rooms" (a longer one awaits sewing) -

It can also become a star shape; what is an optimum number of cells? -

The collage is unnecessary - one coloured "wall" will tint the others, as with the red at bottom left.

Another observation: The ink seeps through the paper; the dye doesn't penetrate, but will run underneath and stain the reverse if you're not careful.

Still experimenting ... still slushing it all around in my subconscious ....