INTRODUCTION

“Baghdad is the chosen location for a secret superpower meeting” in Agatha Christie’s They Came to Baghdad. The book has been translated into more than 30 languages and has been published continuously since it first appeared in England in 1951 when Iraq was under British mandate. 

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In our artists’ book, They Came to Baghdad, Christie’s 40 book covers conjure an exotic site for diplomatic, as well as personal romantic intrigue. They parallel the second chapter, excerpts and images of the 40 countries that have participated in the Multi-National Force deploying troops to Iraq between 2003 and 2011. In our third and final chapter, the invasion continues; it’s an index of corporate logos of the contractors and subcontractors hired for the reconstruction of Iraq and the major foreign investors involved. 

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For this work we have embraced a studio practice based entirely on websearch, not only from traditional media source, but also from alternative sources that have now entered the public sphere. From ebay and amazon, blog entries around the world translated through Google Translate, flickr and myspace all contributed to our visual narrative.

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This book is included in the traveling exhibition 'An inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street' curated by Beau Beausoleil & Sarah Bodman. On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was exploded on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad ... This book is a response to The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition's call for 130 book artists to 're-assemble' some of the 'inventory' of the reading material that was lost in the car bombing" --Colophon.

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They Came To Baghdad is carried by Printed Matters, NY. It's also in the collection of Harvard University Fine Arts Library, Tufts University Artist's Book Collection, Brooklyn Museum Libraries, Oberlin College Artist's Book collection, Indiana University Library, Huntington Library Art Collection, Sand Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Indie Phonebook Library, UK.