One Book, Two Poets

Description:	Medium: Altered book with, photocopies, paint, wax, metal key, plastic compass, fabric, sandpaper, ribbonAnn holds a BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, with a double major in painting and photography. After studying textile printing at Boston University, she worked as a textile designer for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s national mail order catalogue. Ann went on to join the faculty at the deCordova Museum School, specialising in printmaking and mixed media.She is on the boards of The Monotype Guild of New England and the Watertown Children’s Theatre. Since 2001, she has mounted 4 solo exhibitions and participated in over 65 group shows, received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Watertown Community Foundation. Ann is represented in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington, DC. In 2011, she launched an international art collaboration called The Par Avion Project which culminated with an exhibition in Strasbourg, France. When I read about the destruction of booksellers in Baghdad, I was flooded with emotions as I pictured streets in Boston, Seattle, London or Edinburgh where books are bought and sold. Places where local writers and artists meet to drink coffee and talk about their ideas. The places where people go to window shop, buy local foods and sit in cafés. Most cities have a district like this; a safe haven for cultural exchange. For generations, Baghdad had a place like that too, until it was levelled by a car bomb.Civilians targeted for having the audacity to read? I could only begin to imagine the horror of an explosion tearing through this quiet street as unsuspecting merchants and shoppers went about their daily routines. Reflecting on this incident, I had a vision of smoke rising and ashes descending; centuries of ideas swirling together, their meaning reduced to rubble in a single instant.The edition of books I made in response to this tragedy combine words from the great Eastern poet, Al-Mutanabbi, and the great Western poet, William Shakespeare. When their words are charred and mingled together, their poetry is lost, and we, the spectators, are left to make sense of the senseless.It is my hope that by bringing hundreds of artists’ books together, all themed on this atrocity, we can raise our voices and begin a dialogue that will prevent this kind of senseless destruction of art and ideas.
Origin:	2012
Created By:	Forbush, Ann
Contributor(s):	Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition
Source:	http://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/AMSSH/id/432
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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