Al-Mutanabbi Street remembered and celebrated - Hazim - A Gateway Member is speaking at this event.

In 2007 a car bomb destroyed Al-Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad, the street of printers, bookshops and coffee shops, a place of ‘luminous distinction’ for all who visited. It had been the street of intellectual confab for hundreds of years. A group of American and European artists responded to this by producing a number of broadsides, organized from San Francisco’s Overland Books and Bristol University.

Thirty of these broadsides have now been brought to Ireland for two exhibitions, one in The Market House, Monaghan in February and the other opening in the Central Library, ILAC Centre, Dublin on Monday 14th March. It will be on display for two weeks until Monday 28th March.

As part of the exhibition a panel discussion will take place in the Central Library, ILAC Centre, on Saturday 19th March at 3pm, titled “Art as Reply”. Introduced by Evelyn Conlon and chaired by Professor Michael Cronin, DCU, it will include Helen Carey, curator of 1913 Forum on public art, Sean O’Reilly, novelist, reading work from Iraq and Hazim Alansary, an Iraqi artist living in Ireland Other speakers are to be confirmed.

To book a place at the panel discussion, please contact: The Open Learning Centre, Central Library, ILAC Centre, Henry St., Dublin 1. or telephone 01 8734333.

Admission is free, but booking is essential.

Further information on the exhibition please contact: Evelyn Conlon.