Bookbinding is a tradition that promotes the value of experimentation and reuse. Pineider is making this tradition accessible to everyone today.
Workshops, pastimes, initiation rituals: a bookbinding course is much more than just a playful diversion. In the art of joining sheets of paper to create a book, there is a philosophy of life hidden within: “The goal is to transmit to people a DIY but experimental working method, even through the recovery of discarded materials and with everyday tools.” For Sebastiano, one of the instructors in the bookbinding courses organized by Pineider in its boutiques, bookbinding is the art of improvising with discipline. Sebastiano is one of the founders of Libri Finti Clandestini, a unique collective of enthusiasts: “We create experimental editorial products by exploring forgotten urban places. We search for materials in abandoned factories, archives, and printing workshops, and our goal is to create hand-bound books one by one, stamped and numbered, ready to be used and drawn upon: pop-up books in small print runs and collaborations with artists, where we delve into the fields of photography and letterpress printing.”
The philosophy of the Libri Finti Clandestini project, Sebastiano continues, “is to bring something useful, well-crafted, and original to life by using ‘found’ paper that many consider trash: the materials used in the projects have the most diverse pedigree possible because they come from abandoned factories around Europe, libraries, warehouses, paper mills, and printing laboratories.” In Pineider’s Milan store, Sebastiano teaches Japanese bookbinding: “It’s an ancient technique that allows you to create an editorial artifact by working with single sheets of paper or sheets folded in half on themselves, using a needle and thread. Unlike other binding types where once the sewing is completed, you move on to trimming the book block, in the Japanese technique, trimming and arranging the pages in the correct format happen before sewing, which will be visible.”
Discover our bookbinding courses HERE.