From October 2025 to May 2026, BilbaoArte will offer the workshop “Self-Publishing as Resistance,” led by Roberto Aguirrezabala. This workshop aims to provide a practical experience for the multidisciplinary self-publishing of handmade artist books. It is open to artists in residence at Bilbao Arte during the 2025-2026 academic year.
This workshop aims to provide a practical experience for multidisciplinary self-publishing of handmade artist’s books. It is intended for artists in residence at Bilbao Arte for the 2025-2026 academic year. We will work on each resident’s projects, whether graphic art, photography, illustration, sculpture, new technologies, etc., at any stage of development and seeking a creative impulse to bring them to publishing. This is a workshop providing support and advice for the publication of an artist’s book.
In the workshop, we won’t just be making books. We want to avoid merely compiling images in the sequence of album pages, so we’ll be experimenting with an object that has a vocation to be something more, that expands, that seeks to go beyond its physical limits. We’ll better understand the absolute uniqueness of the medium and understand its inner workings. The result must allow the narrative to evolve and continue to grow for it to function effectively. We’ll have access to all of Bilbao Arte’s workshops: graphic design, screen printing, new technologies, and sculpture. Each participant will develop their personal publishing project throughout the classes and will conclude the workshop with an interdisciplinary book, always linked to their artistic discourse. As an additional activity, the resulting pieces will be shown in a public exhibition in June at the Uribitarte40 gallery, following the workshop.
The artist’s book is a work in itself; it can even be an object completely independent of the series. It doesn’t necessarily have to be addressed at the end of the work process, when the images are already finished. Working on the book’s concept at the beginning of the artistic project allows us to approach the narrative with a different, more committed and in-depth approach. To do this, we must understand a series of specific areas—editing, design, layout, and binding—as well as the possibilities available in printing to visualize the book while the images are being created.
COURSE INFORMATION
Date and duration: From October 16th to May 28th (16 sessions, 4 hours each).
Schedule: Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Location: Bilbao Arte Fundazioa (Urazurrutia, 32 Bilbao) Workshop room (1st floor).
GENERAL IDEA OF THE WORKSHOP
The workshop is based on the ongoing work and personal follow-up of each participant, in addition to learning numerous practical and theoretical techniques related to the book format.
In the workshop, we will analyze artist’s books, which are art objects, where form and content go hand in hand to promote the story. We will explore how their structure works, what makes them different, and we will often find an advanced interpretation of the concept of bookbinding and a questioning of the conventional structure of the book format.
Furthermore, the workshop will provide a range of functional knowledge for addressing this fundamental format for communicating a project. Regarding technical issues, we will practice folding techniques and see how it is possible to construct a book without a spine, without stitching, or without adhesives, simply expanding the notion of a book’s structure. We will also analyze aspects such as the parts of a book, the characteristics of paper, what to consider when printing, the different types of binding, thread, stitching, adhesives, cover materials, and other physical elements of a paper publication.
We will also demonstrate that with a few very basic and affordable tools, professional-quality bindings can be achieved.
Finally, we will examine common tools for communicating a publishing project, such as the teaser video, the cover-to-cover video, the sales brochure, and the press kit. We will also review common forms of self-distribution, including online stores, bookstores, markets, festivals, and more.
OBJECTIVE
The main objective is for the workshop participant to achieve a level of knowledge of the artist’s book that will allow them to be completely self-sufficient, whether creating limited-edition works bound entirely by hand, creating professionally finished physical models, or effectively leading a team to produce publications in a collaborative context.
The model, both physical and digital, will be the basic tool for reflection, but also the most appropriate format for presenting the project to competitions, publishers, curators, etc. Although many of these tasks may be performed by external collaborators, mastering certain skills will give us a great curatorial advantage in leading the entire creative process.
The workshop will also serve as a starting point for acquiring basic knowledge, so that each participant can evolve and independently explore the book as an art object and delve into the fascinating task of exploring its limits.
WHO IS THE WORKSHOP FOR?
The workshop is aimed at artists in residence at Bilbao Arte during the 2025-2026 academic year.
FINAL PROJECT
The workshop is primarily practical. Among other techniques, we will explore no-stitch bindings, when it would be appropriate to use a type of Japanese binding or saddle-stitched sheets with a soft cover, or more advanced bindings such as hard covers, multiple booklets, flat spines, and different types of saddle-stitching. As a final project, each participant will work on their own book with their artwork. During the first sessions, the status of each project will be reviewed and all the technical possibilities of the workshops available at Bilbao Arte will be discussed.
The diversity of the group will allow us to study as many special binding cases as there are participants in the workshop. This will allow us to solve each case individually. Each person will work on the binding of their own book. A layout will be designed with InDesign and prepared to send the sheets to the printer for printing.
This format will allow us to comprehensively explore, step by step, each specific phase of the binding process.
The workshop will lay the foundation for students and allow them to experiment with the limits of the book format and its possibilities in the future. Each participant will complete the workshop with their own hand-bound model of the book.
WORKSHOP CONTENTS
The workshop will last 16 sessions, each four hours long, spread from October 2025 to May 2026. A total of 64 hours of theoretical and practical workshops will be held, plus individual work by each participant during class breaks.
The sessions are grouped into five main work sessions:
– Introduction (2 sessions): Presentation of participants, discussion of the projects to be completed, and analysis of reference pieces.
– Techniques (5 sessions): Practice and fundamental bookbinding techniques.
– Advanced Layout in InDesign (2 sessions): Layout techniques in InDesign.
– Debriefing (2 sessions): Presentation and discussion of project ideas.
– Individual follow-up, design, and creation (3 sessions): Layout of the project in InDesign and export of files for printing.
– Binding of the final book: (2 days): Binding of two copies of the final book of the workshop.
EXHIBITION OF THE RESULTING PIECES
As an additional activity following the workshop, the resulting books will be exhibited in the Uribitarte40 gallery at Bilbao Arte as part of the 2025-26 residency exhibition. The display method for each piece will be studied, and a label will be added with the technical information, authorship, materials used, synopsis, etc. These prototypes will be available for public consultation during the exhibition period.
KEY DATES
– By April 23, 2026, all projects must be fully completed at the design level, and the InDesign files must be prepared for export to PDF and sent to the printer to order the printed spreads.
– By the end of May 2026, all books must be completed so they can be photographed for inclusion in the exhibition catalog.
Roberto Aguirrezabala
Sestao, 1971. Lives and works in Bilbao.
Artist in residence at BilbaoArte in 2010 and 2015, Aguirrezabala graduated in Fine Arts, specialising in audiovisual and painting, from the University of the Basque Country (EHU-UPV) (1995). Interested in photography, he trained with the photographer Jesús López de Uribe between 1990 and 1992. In 1995, he studied for a Master’s Degree in New Technologies and Internet at the Tracor New Techologies Centre in Bilbao. The Arteleku art centre is another of the cornerstones of his training, where he attended the sculpture workshop run by Txomin Badiola and Ángel Bados in 1994, and the Art and Electricity electronic art workshop run by the Rodriguez Foundation in 2000-01.
His accolades include different awards and grants, including the grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport (2023, 2022, 2021), from the Basque Government (2023-21, 2019-18, 2016), 3rd Prize at the Encontros da Imagen 2022 festival, Braga, Portugal, Photobook Award, Braga, Portugal (2023), Open Call of the PhotoBookWeek Festival, Aarhus, Denmark (2021), Montehermoso Award at the 2018 Viphoto Festival, First Prize at the V Ankaria Artist Book Award 2018. This solo shows include War Museum at the Montehermoso Cultural Centre, Vitoria-Gasteiz (2019), Entropy at the BilbaoArte Foundation, Bilbao (2016), Net.art 1998–2008, Huarte Contemporary Art Centre, Navarra.
His work is part of many private and public collections: MNCARS, Reina Sofia National Art Museum (Madrid), Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Gabriela Cendoya Bergareche Collection, San Telmo Museoa (Donostia-San Sebatián), De Pietri Artphilen Foundation (Lugano, Suiza), Ankaria Foundation, Bilbao Arte Foundation, Caja Madrid, MEIAC, Extramadura and Ibero-American Museum of Contemporary Art, Basque Goverment, Bizkaia provincial government, UPV-EHU inter alia.
