Presence and Absence
| Description: |
screenprint. Edition of 14 As I was thinking about the al-Mutanabbi Street bombing for almost a whole year, and spend much of the time learning about the event and Iraq in general, two kinds of images and feelings came to crystallize themselves for me: One is the image of charred books – a symbol for violence against culture, education and free thought throughout history while the other image was of hope - a of kind fragility of the act of reading and learning in times of war. Inspired by a photo I saw from the Associated Press of two girls sharing a book, I altered their image to emphasize the cultural differences i.e., West vs. East and Islam by their clothes, while both reading from the same book. The lion heads, which are falling out of the book, and once a symbol of Ishtar from Iraqs ancient history, are fragments of another kind of violence and decay. How else would one learn about other peoples histories and cultures if not from books? I believe that if there is a hope for peace and reconciliation over the ashes of charred books, it is the idea that we can learn about each others cultures, lives and histories though reading and sharing ideas. Why girls reading? Girls are hardly seen as symbols of strength in any contemporary cultures; however, I see an educated girl as the way to building resistance in the face of justified or unjustified violence. I teach art in an all-girls public school on the South Side of Chicago, and work with girls who deal with social conditions which engender a spectrum of violence, which they must deal with on a daily basis. In times and moments of hopelessness, the act of reading may seem a trivial or superfluous activity, yet it becomes the only hope for changing the status quo - so my students tell me, so I tell them, as well (Retrieved from IUCAT November 4, 2019). |
|---|---|
| Origin: | 2015 |
| Created By: |
Kosa, Csilla |
| Contributor(s): |
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition |
| Publisher: |
(Chicago, IL, USA) |
| Source: |
http://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/AMSSH/id/1252 |
| Collection: |
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition Collection |
| Rights: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Copyright: |
In Copyright |
| Subjects: |
artists book art bookworks |
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This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the Indiana State Library.