The final Friday of the month means it’s time for We Are the World Blogest, a day for promoting positive news. It delights me to participate as an agent of pronoia highlighting feel-good news stories for us all to celebrate.
Co-hosting this project this month are: Peter Nena , Inderpreet Uppal, Shilpa Garg, Roshan Radhakrishnan, Sylvia McGrath, and Belinda Witzenhausen. Do check out their posts, along with everyone else participating, and feel free to join us here.
The story I’m sharing today is one I love for many reasons. It’s an ongoing unfolding story reminding us that patience and commitment, dedication and persistence are important. It appeals to me personally as a book lover and an artist; as someone who believes art is important, that every culture has a right to flourish, and that it is our responsibility to support causes we believe in.
Let me introduce you to Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal and his project 168:01.
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the College of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad lost their entire library of over 70,000 books to looters who set fire to the collection.
Bilal’s response was to create an installation in Canada featuring a library of blank white books, representing a fraction of the books lost; information now lost as the blank white pages. Using the crowdfunding platform of Kickstarter, Bilal initially raised funds to replace each one of those 1000 blank books with replacement books for those lost in Baghdad. The project continues with more of the lost books being replaced, and the library space itself being rebuilt.
The project’s name 168:01 is a tribute to the time in the 13th century when a Mongol siege of Baghdad destroyed the world’s largest library. Legend tells that all the books were thrown in the Tigris River to create a bridge for the Mongolian army to cross, and that the ink on the pages of the books bled into the river for seven days (168 hours), after which the books were all drained of knowledge.
I invited you to read about the project here in this article, which also contains a brief video.
The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto is currently hosting the 168:01 exhibition through August 19.
I hold this project close to my heart for many reasons as I’ve explained above, but also because I was part of the first wave of Kickstarter contributors who funded the first 1000 books. I’m not someone who holds blank journals as too precious or too intimidating to use, but I’m holding on to this 168:01 blank book for a special project I’ve not quite fully formulated in my mind yet. But I certainly intend to fill its pages with words and art about loss and recovery.
May the time come soon when all words are safe and all knowledge is allowed to flourish, and there is strong peace everywhere.
Strong Peace Everywhere….So mote it be
Indeed!
What an incredible story of someone making a huge difference! I am impressed.
Me too Margaret – I find it so inspiring.
“May the time come soon when all words are safe and all knowledge is allowed to flourish, and there is strong peace everywhere.” Yes! Yes! Yes! This filled me like our ‘closer walk.’
I’ve been holding “closer walk” deep in my heart and mind Pattie – it’s such a beautiful container.
That’s a fascinating project, I always so admire someone who can do something entirely unique and creative and to also be actually contributing to a problem is a wonderful bonus. How cool that you helped with this project and received one of the blank journals.
There’s real magic in that isn’t there Candace? It’s such a joy to see and celebrate such action in our world. And each example to me is always a reminder that there IS another way and perhaps one day we’ll value creativity truly as a core value in our world.
This is an amazing story. I didn’t know that bit of history, but was aware of how the University of Baghdad had lost its library. What a creative solution to a ridiculous problem that should never have happened.
There’s something about this that truly fills my heart Ally. It’s a practical AND beautiful response that fills me with hope.
What a fantastic project – his ideas of doing something after the images of war have faded is wonderful – with so much havoc and disturbance in the world, something that happened 15 months ago is old news, let alone 15 years. Inspirational.
Did you get to know what book you helped to buy Deborah?
I, too, Fil am really inspired by this. There is something so profoundly powerful in understanding that 15 years later there are still open wounds from war that need our attention.
I don’t know which particular replacement book I contributed to.
Hi Deborah – what an amazing project and one I haven’t heard about … so am delighted to read more – and must now go and check more of his story. What an incredible and thoughtful kickstarter project … thanks for telling us about it; I feel sure your – for now – blank book – will be filled with a treasure trove relative to this project … cheers Hilary
I’m a really big fan of Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms – it’s a well-spring of interesting and innovative projects. And it’s a true delight to listen to what my blank book is whispering to me about what it would like to be filled with.
what a courageous journey – to turn such a ugly slap at the culture into an installation – I love that art lies within heART and eARTh and that to do art / be art comes from our hearts. I think Art has the true potential to bring light and healing into humanities darkest moments.
“…art lies within heART and eARTh.” Yes, yes, yes, Sandra. I don’t think this can or should be dismissed as a coincidental/accidental/or silly word-play, but instead a very specific conscious reminder of both how to access ART and what it’s true purpose hints at.
This is such a fascinating story and what an incredible project. It’s wonderful that you contributed for this amazing project too, Deborah! So awe-inspiring!
Such an incredible project indeed Shilpa – it fills me with hope on so many levels.
I appreciate you stopping by and for your part co-hosting #WATWB.
What a wonderful post! So much lost, it’s heartbreaking. I don’t live far from where they will be holding the exhibition, I am going to try to get in to see it! Thanks so much for sharing this and for being a part of #WATWB.
Oh I do hope you get to go Belinda! And thanks for co-hosting #WATWB this month – it’s always such a delight to celebrate.
Wow! What an amazing project Deborah. Thanks for bringing this program to light. I live in Toronto and am excited to go check out this fabulous library at the museum. 🙂
Oh that’s exciting Debby – I’m glad you’re going to get to see it.
What a wonderful project and how cool that you got involved while it was on the ground floor, Deborah. 70,000 is a lot of books to replace and Wafaa Bilal obviously has a big heart. Thank you for sharing this wonderful project with us!
I so love this project and the reminder that innovative thinking can create substantial results. Thanks for stopping by Emily!
Fascinating story, what an amazing project. How wonderful that you’ve been a part of it.