Book Art Competition exhibitions
From 23 April to 21 June, the Book Art Competition exhibitions are on view at the Exhibition Hall of the Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre (KCCC), Didžioji Vandens g. 2: the exhibition of the 2025 winners and the exhibition “Historical Memory and the Search for Identity in the Publications of the Book Art Competition, 20xx–202x”. The exhibitions are part of the Book Art Festival.
The Ministry of Culture announces the winners of the annual Book Art Competition. The competition has been held in Lithuania since 1993 and has been organised and overseen by the Ministry of Culture since 1996.
The submitted publications are evaluated according to the criteria set out in the competition regulations, including layout structure and typesetting quality, printing and binding materials, overall production quality, the conceptual strength of graphic design and its dialogue with the book’s content, and the book’s artistic coherence. The evaluation is carried out by two expert committees, appointed for two-year terms. The new committees will be confirmed by the order of the Minister of Culture in January.
The current Expert Panel of Practitioners is chaired by Linas Spurga Sr (book artist, associate professor at Vilnius University, representative of the Lithuanian Publishers Association) and comprises Aurelija Slapšytė (graphic designer, lecturer at Vilnius College of Design; representative of the Lithuanian Design Association), Vilija Liutkevičienė (printing paper specialist), and Dr Vaida Ragėnaitė (art historian, editor-in-chief of the art magazine Dailė, and head of Artseria, the publishing house of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association). This panel carries out the initial assessment of the publications’ production quality but does not award prizes.
The aim of the competition is to foster book art and book culture in Lithuania, to select the most professionally designed books, and to recognise and encourage book designers, illustrators, and professionals in publishing and print production. A bilingual catalogue of the competition is published annually.
The competition evaluates books published in 2025 by Lithuanian publishers. Prizes and diplomas are awarded to those involved in their creation: book designers, illustrators, layout designers, publishers, and printers.
The display “Historical Memory and the Search for Identity in the Publications of the Book Art Competition, 20xx–202x”, meanwhile, focuses on how contemporary book art practice articulates its relationship with history, which is most often tragic and fragmented.
The thematic axis uniting the publications is an attempt to rethink identity through difficult historical ruptures: the changing of political regimes, collective traumas, the fragility of personal testimony and the power of institutional narratives. In these works a tension emerges between official history and individual experience, between the archive as an authority and the archive as a construct.
The exhibition invites us to rethink how design decisions — typography, rhythm, materiality, the relationship between image and text — dictate the way content is perceived, and how they invite the reader to abandon passivity and actively rethink many-voiced histories.
Organised by: the Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre
Funded by: Klaipėda City Municipality, the Lithuanian Council for Culture
Partners: the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania
Opening hours of the KCCC Exhibition Hall (Didžioji Vandens g. 2, Klaipėda): Wednesday–Sunday 11.00–19.00 (closed on public holidays). Admission to the exhibition is free on the opening day; afterwards there is a charge. Please note that participants may appear in photographs and video recordings of the event published in various media.