The collaborative poem and silkscreen series A Library Set on Fire (2008) calls attention to the destruction of history and material culture in the wake of US intervention and occupation in the Middle East, while also serving as a reminder of the artistic and intellectual solidarities cultivated between cultural practitioners and communities. Etel Adnan’s (b. 1925 in Beirut; d. 2021 in Paris) poem of the same title, which appears within the portfolio in English and Arabic (translated by May Muzaffar), was written in response to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq that severely destabilized the country and led to the burning and looting of Iraq’s National Library and State Archives, which was insufficiently protected by occupying US forces. Artist Rafa Nasiri’s (b. 1940 in Tikrit; d. 2013 in Amman) silkscreen prints reflect on the 2007 car bombing of Baghdad’s Al Mutanabbi Street (named for the 10th-century classical Iraqi poet), which burned much of the bookshops and presses of a hub of cultural life that was not as widely reported. The portfolio of Nasiri’s prints and Adnan’s poetry conveys the artists’ long friendship that began in 1974 at the First Biennial of Arab Art in Baghdad and spanned other visits in France and Morocco.
