NORDIC BOOKBINDING
Nordic Nature 2025
The exhibition is organized by Nordic Bookbinding Society in collaboration with the Icelandic National and University Library and the Icelandic bookbinders JAM group.
The exhibition will be held in the National and University Library of Iceland Reykjavik and it will be on display throughout the summer 2025.
The idea of this exhibition is to celebrate Nordic bookbinding and book arts: to encourage Nordic bookmakers to present their work and to gain wide exposure to the art and craft of hand bound books in the Nordic countries.
Nordic Bookbinding Society
In 2022 Bookbinders and book artists were invited to Leksand in Sweden to talk about the future of handbookbindery, book-craft, book arts and the concept of the countries’ previous collaboration; the exhibition Nordic Bookbindings. The meeting proposed a working group that began the work of forming the Nordic Bookbinding Society.
The aim for the Nordic Bookbinding Society is strengthen collaboration between bookbinders and book artists in Nordic countries. The society will work to enhance, preserve and renew the craft, education and practice in contemporary culture to achieve a high professional standard.
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JAM group
Organizer of the exhibition is the Icelandic JAM group which was founded on October 1st, 1989 after a course in artistic bookbinding, which was organized by the Graphical Union of Iceland at the Industrial School in Reykjavík (Now Reykjavik technical college). The Danish bookbinders Arne Møller Pedersen and Jakob Lund were instructors at the course. The group then named themselves after their initials. This was a great lever for the bookbinding profession and caused six bookbinders to take part in the Nordic competition the following year.
Then there was a break in the Nordic book collaboration for quite some time and in a way there was a generational change in the profession.
In 1998 a few bookbinders decided to try to revive this Nordic cooperation and in 2001 there was an official meeting held by the JAM group in Iceland where bookbinders from all of the Nordic countries gathered and the rules were finalized about the new arrangement of Nordic book fairs. With these arrangements each county hosted the “Nordic Bookbinding” competition which then turned into a traveling exhibition that visited every Nordic country each time.
In 2022 few members of the JAM group went to Leksand in Sweden to take part in founding the Nordic Bookbinding Society and therefore Iceland became first in the circle of Nordic countries to host the Nordic book fair/exhibition.
