This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.
"The work CJ Robinson has made for the al-Mutanabbi Street project is a book of minimalist simplicity. It contains 130 blank pages, one for each of those killed or injured in the car bombing. The blank pages are a silent memorial to the victims, representing their voicelessness and anonymity, as well as the knowledge lost through the destruction of books. There is a dedication on the first page, and on the last page, a quote from John Milton: 'He who destroys a good book kills reason itself'"--Statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
"The work of CJ Robinson blurs the boundaries between literature and visual art. He has produced collage, texts, books, sound pieces, projections and 'found narratives.' In 2009, he obtained a Master's Degree in Fine Art from the University of the West of England, where he gained a Distinction. Since then he has self-published several book works in his own name, and several others, under the heteronym of James Merrick. His books are available in a number of book shops, including the Book Art Book Shop in London, and can be bought directly from www. blurb.co.uk. Some of his work is held in the collections of the Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol, the Tate Library in Tate, Britain, and in University College, London. In 2012, he contributed a work to the Al-Mutanabbi Street Project, an international touring exhibition of book artists, which will eventually find a permanent home in the Iraqi National Library in 2015. And in 2014, he participated in an exhibition of UK and Russian book artists in Moscow"--The artist's personal website (viewed July 14, 2015).
