Design a bookmark for Al-Mutanabbi Street

On March 5, 2007, on the booksellers’ street in Baghdad, Al-Mutanabbi Street, a car bomb exploded. Thirty people were killed and over 100 injured; the literary cafes and book stalls that lined the street were in ruins.  In response, a San Francisco bookseller created the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project, a traveling exhibition of artists’ books, prints, and broadsides. These artworks react to and raise awareness of the event. Here is your opportunity to react and explore: join us on Monday, September 7 at 1:30 in the Library Gallery to explore the exhibition and to create bookmarks for Al-Mutanabbi Street.

Wherever these bookmarks land, that is where we can say “Al-Mutanabbi Street starts here.”  Al-Mutanabbi Street starts in a book, in a library, in a classroom, and in those places, it starts in a bookmark.   Al-Mutanabbi Street starts over the chatter of a coffee shop, and in an open notebook. Changing hands, and being shared, Al-Mutanabbi Street starts there.