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On 14 August 2026, BIBLIOTHEKET hosted an exhibition and presentation of Instruction Readings (2021–2025), a series of artists’ books by Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić. The event took place at Ateljé 614, Hus 6, at Konstepidemin Cultural Centre in Gothenburg and marked the opening of BIBLIOTHEKET in its new space.

Instruction Readings is a series of conceptual artist’s books (Discarded book covers, handmade paper from recycled pulp, hand-binding, 2021–2025) that Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić began during her residency at TYPA – Printing and Paper Arts Centre in Tartu, Estonia, in 2021. Combining discarded book covers, handmade paper made from recycled pulp, and traditional bookbinding techniques, the works explore the relationship between writing and reading, narrative and meaning, and the ways in which books are made, encountered, and experienced.

Drawing on the traditions of experimental and conceptual artist’s books — particularly the legacy of the New Artistic Practice in Novi Sad in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as Fluxus and works such as Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit — Maletin Vojvodić approaches the book simultaneously as an artwork, an object, a medium and a conceptual platform.

The covers of discarded books by Russian, Persian and Estonian authors are combined with blank pages made from handmade recycled paper. The titles are embossed using a Gutenberg press, while the absence of narrative content transforms the book into a space for interpretation, alternative forms of reading and recontextualisation.

By leaving the pages blank, Maletin Vojvodić deliberately gives the reader an active role in the creative process. Imagination is not solely the author’s domain; it also emerges through the reader’s engagement with the work. The blank page becomes an invitation to project, interpret, imagine, and create meaning. The works also address the contemporary crisis of reading in a culture increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and algorithmic content production.

The reuse of discarded book covers and recycled paper simultaneously raises questions of ecological responsibility, material memory, transformation and slowness. Instruction Readings brings literature and visual art together by approaching the artist’s book as an expanded field of literature — not as a vessel for a predetermined narrative, but as a space for slowing down, reflection, interpretation and new forms of reading.

The presentation of Instruction Readings was particularly significant in the context of BIBLIOTHEKET, a small-scale reference library focusing on independently published printed matter and artists’ books, run by Mari Lagerquist. The library had recently moved from one location to another, and Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić’s exhibition and presentation marked its opening in the new space.

There was also an unexpected and particularly interesting conceptual correspondence between the library and the works presented. As BIBLIOTHEKET had not yet unpacked its collection after the move, the library itself was temporarily a space intended for books, but without the books being fully present or accessible. At the same time, the books in Instruction Readings contained covers, titles, and the physical form of a book, but their pages had deliberately been left blank.

The coincidence created a meaningful parallel between the two: a library whose books had not yet been unpacked and artist’s books whose pages contained no text. In both cases, the absence of the expected content becomes part of the experience. The unpacked books suggest the potential of the library, while the blank pages of Instruction Readings suggest the potential of reading, interpretation, and imagination.

The situation also raises a series of questions: What is a library? What is a collection? What is it that turns a collection into a library? Is a space filled with books and paper enough? And why do we collect things?

About the artist

Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić is a writer, visual artist, cultural researcher and art journalist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. Her interdisciplinary practice spans literature, research-based writing, photography, art criticism and conceptual artist’s books, with a focus on contemporary art, image studies, intercultural dialogue, gender studies and visual culture.

Her work has been presented in Serbia and internationally, including in Svalbard, the United States, Croatia and other European countries. Her long-term artistic and research engagement with Nordic and Arctic cultures has developed through artist residencies and research programmes in Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Svalbard, Finland and Norway, as well as through residencies and research projects in France, Portugal, Latvia, Estonia, Japan and Spain.

She has received artist residency grants, literary and photography awards, and international cultural support from institutions and programmes including NORLA, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and the Embassy of Finland in Belgrade, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade, the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MuseumsQuartier/Q21 Vienna, Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture 2022, and EU-Japan Fest in Tokyo.

She has collaborated with visual artist Dragan Vojvodić on artistic and research projects in Serbia and internationally.

Maletin Vojvodić is co-founder of the Art Box NGO and its artist-in-residence programme in Novi Sad, and editor-in-chief of the Art Box portal, an independent platform for contemporary art, culture and research.