Ieva Rusteikaitė

Siberiana Books

Bookbinder

©Julija Rusteikaite

©Liuda Drizyte

©Julija Rusteikaite

Capsules of moments past

For Ieva, bookbinding is a way of paying tribute to a book's contents
She calls herself a 'thing-ologist'
Her work is a collision of exploration and making

Since 2011, Ieva Rusteikaitė has been restoring old documents at Vilnius University Library and creating art books in her studio Siberiana Books in parallel. She studied Cultural History, Anthropology, and Semiotics at Vilnius University, then Conservation and Restoration at the University of Barcelona, and now she is a member of the Vilnius Bookbinders Guild. Ieva describes herself as a practitioner of 'thing-ology' – a kind of anthropology of objects, characterised by a close look at new, worn or even decayed surfaces, parts, and materials. In her bookbinding work, she fuses these together during the process of creation, to harbour all the traces of habits and everyday movements that were within the different parts. The result is a book that is both new and restored, encompassing many dimensions of content and form.

Interview

©Cristobal Jimenez Calvente

©Liuda Drizyte

Why did you become interested in this craft?: As a Cultural History and Anthropology graduate, document restoration seemed to me a fascinating craft, an opportunity to get in direct contact with historical sources. I turned to bookbinding because I wanted to understand how handmade books were made.
What is your relationship with tradition and innovation?: I am very interested in how older forms can be combined with contemporary ones. That tradition feeds the imagination tremendously because many people have no idea how much imagination and strange solutions there are in historical bookbinding.
What is more inspiring when you create a book – its form or its content?: As a voracious reader, I believe that the content is the main character. Bookbinding is, after all, an applied art, a fine craft, and it is applied to the text. I like it very much, and I take it as a challenge to create a setting for the book's content. Poetry is incredibly suited to this art.
Do you see yourself as an upholder of a dying craft?: Whichever way you look at it, in Lithuania, yes, it is very rare. In Europe, it is disappearing more slowly. The history of bookbinding in Lithuania is rather ambiguous. We know the famous bookbinder Tadas Lomsargis, but after him, everything stopped due to wars and occupations. It is hard even to be sure whether it is disappearing, or making a come back because it was already gone!

Ieva Rusteikaitė is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2010