28 Cards dedicated to lives cut short
Cnr of Cordelia and Russell Streets, South Brisbane QLD
Opening Saturday 8 June, 5-8pm
Exhibition dates: 9 June - 7 July 2013
An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street
Artists: Peter Annand (concept and tracing), Camilla Birkeland, Renata Buziak, Martin Barry, Henri Van Noordenburg and Brigid Annand (photographs) Australia, 2012
Internationally traveling exhibition of artists' books (got to [More] below for a list of exhibitions)
'On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad Al-Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic centre of Baghdad bookselling, and heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops.
In July 2010, the poet and bookseller Beau Beausoleil put out a call for book artists to join ‘An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street’, a project to “re-assemble†some of the “inventory†of the reading material that was lost in the car bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street on 5th March 2007'...
our contribution to the project: 28 cards dedicated to lives cut short
We have dedicated these lived moments to lives cut short. Like cut flowers, they are caught in visual haiku. On the front of each card is a moment, captured by cellphone or point-and-shoot camera, in the life of one of us. Digital tracings on each image invite viewers to imagine being in the skin of that person, at that moment. On the back of each card is a photograph taken accidentally - a similar place, but with no human mind framing it.
Like the people caught in the al-Mutanabbi street explosion, we six share a cultural practice - in our case, photographic art - whose function can be to illuminate the humanity that could unite all of us.
Edition: Unlimited; Size: 114 mm x 162 mm x 19 mm; Material: Inkjet prints (two-sided), cardboard box
Exhibitions in 2013:
The Cambridge Arts Council Cambridge, Massachusetts, January - June 2013
The Santa Fe University of Art and Design Santa Fe, New Mexico - January 25 - March 30, 2013
The San Francisco Center for the Book San Francisco, California - February 1 - May 11, 2013
The John Rylands Library Manchester, UK. - February 6 - July 29, 2013
Gallery Route One Point Reyes, California, February 8 - April 28, 2013
Center for Book Arts, New York City, in collaboration with Poets House, New York City- July 10 - September 21, 2013
Literary & Philosophical Society Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. August 5 - September 30, 2013
Collins Memorial Library, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington - Aug 19-October 31st, 2013
Literary & Philosophical Society Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. August 5 - September 30, 2013
Newark Public Library, Newark, New Jersey, October - December 2013
The artists, originally from Australia, Norway, Poland and the Netherlands, are associated through their involvement with Queensland Centre for Photography. Links to artists' websites:
Peter Annand
Camilla Birkeland
Renata Buziak
Henri Van Noordenburg
Martin Barry