Untitled: A Collection of Maps for Al-Mutanabbi Street - Baghdad, Iraq, 2011
Suzanne Vilmain, USA
| Untitled: A Collection
of Maps for Al-Mutanabbi Street - Baghdad, Iraq, Suzanne
Vilmain, counting coup press, Santa Fe, New Mexico USA, September
2011 Quaquaversal - wheresoever - turned in whatever way towards a single point viewing from right or left - reflecting the direction of written languages - English/Arabic… map cartography in multiple languages, timelines, histories, beliefs & boundaries… ephemera from old newspapers, children's books, atlases, dictionaries, encyclopedias… Other names for Wheresoever: Al-Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad, Bagdad, Iraq, Mesopotamia (The Land Where Two Rivers Meet - Greek), British Mandate Of Mesopotamia, Persia, Ottoman Empire, Far East, Middle East Asia Minor, Assyria, Sumer, Chaldean Empire, Garden Of Eden, Paradise. Designed in recycled wooden cigar boxes from Cuba, the container is a conceptual form of a map-holder (knee-board) that I saw in an old National Geographic photo. I am an artist, a letterpress printer, and palimpsest recycler of books and ephemera. Born 1949 Waterloo, Iowa, I moved to New Mexico 1973. I designed this edition of books as a collection of maps and ephemera - juxtaposing images from satellites to stone carvings. The books are untitled and unscripted - no sequence, no numbered pages, no order - with over 17 different names for this ancient place. A jet pilot wore a metal clipboard strapped on above the knee so as to free hands for flying while unfolding and reading maps. There is no sequence of time, no preferred direction, no real sense to be made of any of this! There is no anatomy of bombing, no need for actual maps, no real sense to be made of any of this! There is no point of view that is right, no point on a map that makes sense to be bombed, same as it ever was; No Real Sense To Be Made Of Any Of This! http://counting-coup-press.blogspot.com suzanne@vilmain.net |