By Lynn Norusis
On March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad killing 26 people and destroying the downtown, a place that was a gathering point for booksellers and intellectuals. While the street reopened a year and a half later, the imprint left by the events carried a larger effect. In 2012 Deema Shehabi and Beau Beausoleil edited the anthology Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, containing contributions by more than 100 artists including Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid. This season the anthology comes to life at numerous venues around Northern Virginia and in the District through Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016 as Arab-American and American artists hold exhibits,workshops, films and festivals to show their solidarity with the people and artists through their own works. The primary motivation behind this cultural undertaking, which runs through March, is “erasing biases,” says project coordinator Nikki Brugnoli. “It is so totally vital in understanding how to be global citizens that are aware and conscious of human rights.” But this is not a political exhibit, according to Helen Frederick, curator of the festival. “Many people think of [the Arab language] as a terrorist language, and we are trying to erase that bias to show that it is one of the most poetic, lyrical, beautiful, original languages that formed the use of words and the idea of the imagination of images. The community can come … have conversations with the artists and poets, see the images and understand the narrative of this story.”
( February 2016 )
