My thanks to artist, writer and publisher Jeremy Dixon for sharing the open callout from WBN2024 and WBN United Artists for a postcard exhibition organised by Sarah Bodman and Linda Parr at The Centre for Print Research, University of the West of England (UWE).
The theme for WBN2024 is In Praise of Birds. WBN United Artists invited people to read and respond creatively, on a postcard, to a text or book about birds. Over 200 artists responded and over 250 postcards were sent in. The postcards are now on display at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, UK from Friday 19 April – Tuesday 2 July 2024. The exhibition is open to the public Monday to Friday at Bower Ashton Library 9-5, (parking at Ashton Court or meters on main road), and over the weekend of Bristol Artist’s Book Event (BABE) on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th June 2024.
The postcards will also be displayed (on printout posters) at the Learning Resources Centre, Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI), 1 September – 31 October. Alongside the main exhibition will be a display of postcards made by students at HKDI. After the exhibition in Bristol, physical postcards will be swapped and sent out to participating artists with an extra gift from WBN2024 of commissioned postcards designed by writer and artist Stephen Fowler.
There is also a gorgeous WBN video featuring some of the images from submissions, with music by Si Butler and Simon Smith, which has now gone live on Tuesday 23 April for World Book Night on YouTube (it’s just over three minutes long).
For my postcard, I chose the beautiful poem ‘The Sweet Arab, the Generous Arab’ by Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye, inspired by the line “You who would not kill a mouse, a bird.”
The whole text of the poem is given below. It’s from Shihab Nye’s book Tender Spot: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2008).
The Sweet Arab, the Generous Arab' by Naomi Shihab Nye
Since no one else is mentioning you enough.
The Arab who extends his hand.
The Arab who will not let you pass
his tiny shop without a welcoming word.
The refugee inviting us in for a Coke.
Clean glasses on a table in a ramshackle hut.
Those who don't drink Coke would drink it now.
We drink from the silver flask of your hospitality.
We drink and you bow your head.
Please forgive everyone who has not honoured your name.
You who would not kill a mouse, a bird.
Who feels sad sometimes even cracking an egg.
Who places two stones on top of one another
for a monument. Who packed the pieces,
carried them to a new corner. For whom the words
rubble and blast are constants. Who never wanted
those words. To be able to say,
this is a day and I live in it safely,
with those I love, was all. Who has been hurt
but never hurt in return. Fathers and grandmothers,
uncles, the little cousin who wanted only
to see a Ferris wheel in his lifetime, ride it
high into the air. And all the gaping days
they bought no tickets
for spinning them around.
For my postcard (which measures 87 x 139mm), I photocopied the text of the poem in a small font and pasted it onto the right of the postcard. On the left, I pasted a small cut-out of Picasso’s dove of peace on top of the colours of the Palestinian flag which I made with coloured Sharpie pens. Before I sent it off to WBN United Artists, I took a photo of it on a rather rainy day (below).
The only downside to making a postcard is the itch to want to make more and more! I am so looking forward to visiting the exhibition in Bristol. In the meantime, Linda Parr has been sharing the huge array of fantastic contributions on her Instagram account. If you can’t make the exhibition in person, take a look!
Josephine Corcoran 