Al-Mutanabbi Street Inventory Project

In 2010 San Francisco poet and bookseller Beau Beausoleil founded the Al-Mutanabbi Street Inventory Project to commemorate the 2007 bombing of Baghdad's famous bookselling thoroughfare, which left thirty people dead and the city's literary center devastated. Since then, Beausoleil has commissioned 261 artist books, created by artists from around the world to celebrate al-Mutanabbi Street and the resilience of the written word. This past March, a group of the books was selected for exhibition by the San Francisco Center for the Book; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, on display at the center until May 11, includes fifty-five artist books from the inventory. The images below represent just a few of the works currently on display.