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Popular Uprising & Protest

The 21st century so far has also seen many popular protests and uprisings as citizens take to the streets to make their voices heard and to effect change. These artists’ books use technologies ranging from a 2nd-century bookbinding style to contemporary laser cutting to document three such events on opposite sides of the globe, in Mexico, Iran, and Egypt.  

43: Cuarenta y Tres

Lorena Velázquez
43: Cuarenta y Tres
México: Se realizó el Taller de la Lorraine, 2015

Velázquez’s graphically striking book is born out of the outrage following the 2014 murder of forty-three students in Iguala, Mexico. Forty-three red knots on the fore edge of the first page of the accordion book memorialize the victims, and the book was produced in an edition of forty-three copies. 

Purchased using funds from the Howard Holsenbeck Library Fund.

UNC Library Catalog: https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb8526003

The Square

Islam Aly
The Square
[Iowa City, Iowa]: Islam Aly, [2014]

Aly’s book commemorates the 2011 Egyptian uprising in Tahrir Square in his home city of Cairo. To capture both the moment’s historic nature and its contemporaneity, the book combines a binding structure that dates back to the earliest days of the codex with hypermodern laser-cutting technology.

Purchased using funds from the Boone Domestic Architecture Endowment.

UNC Library Catalog: https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb8526020

Setari Arashloo, et al.
Body in (over) the City: The Girls of Enghelab Street
[New York?]: [Setare S. Arashloo], [2019]

This picture essay explores the ‘Girls of Enghelab Street’ protests against mandatory hijab in Iran that began in 2017. “[B]y bringing in notes from different resources which discuss art as a form of social participation, and the daily political life of cities the book explores the Girls of Enghelab's action as a form of peaceful resistance to power by citizens in public space" (Quotation from the artist’s statement.) 

UNC Library Catalog: https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb9638246