Al-Mutanabbi

This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

Dikko Faust is the founder, hand-typographer, and printer at Purgatory Pie Press, New York City, where he works with designer, Esther K. Smith, author of How to make books and magic books and paper toys (Random House). Faust and Smith collaborate with other artists and writers, making artists' books and limited editions. They have had solo exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Group exhibitions include the 2012 Artists' Alphabets exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. The Getty, the Whitney, the Tate, the Walker, and the National Gallery of Art also collect Purgatory Pie Press. Faust teaches letterpress at School of Visual Arts. Smith teaches Artist Books at Cooper Union.