the street is our gallery

It took about 3 weeks from the first brush stroke till the moment, that the ibug´s doors closed again behind the last visitor. Beforehand month of organization and dozens of weeks of hard work had to be done. An effort, that guests and ibug-fans obviously appreciated. Within the two weekends the festival for urban art lured about 15.000 people to visit the ruinous remains of the former VEB Spemafa. A massive success for team and artists. Since March the brownfield was bucked up by volunteers in arduous handiwork for the creative phase, which started in mid august and assembled around 120 artists from 19 countries, including Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Mexico, the USA, Canada and Brazil.

They transformed the long forgotten area by diverse styles of graffiti, murals, installations and media-art into a synthesis of the arts. Art-fans of all ages and from all over the world came to see what the´ve done to the former machine-building factory or swing by the partner-event “Kiez am Brühl”. In between the festival-weekends the ibug embraced it´s self-determined educational mandate and led more than 1000 pupils from the region trough the brownfield to open their mind for another perspective of art.

Some familiar faces showed up, like: Tasso (Meerane), Quintessenz (Berlin), Kera(Berlin), Guido Zimmermann (Frankfurt), Zonenkinder (Hamburg), Hifi (Dortmund)or Julia Humpfer (Stuttgart) as well as international guests including Nespoon (Poland), Chromeo and Taina (Switzerland), Madame Moustache and BenjAMINDuquenne (France), Sanne Maloe Slecht and ZZNNArt (Netherlands), Koctel and Necko(Spain), Koz Dos and Luca di Maggio (Italy), Kid Crayon, Wasp Elder andMalarko (Great Britain), Dima Fatum and Maria Uvarova (Ukraine), Said Dokinsand Eva Bracamontes (Mexico), Stephen Swartz (USA), WartinPantois (Canada) or Robolito (Brazil).

Head-Organizer Thomas Dietze, who has been supported by KulturTragWerk Sachsen e.V., said: “We are thrilled by the result and the feedback we´ve got by our visitors. After an intense week with the artists and two fabulous festival-weekends we want to thank our numerous partners an sponsors for their support and above all our dedicated team for their commitment and passion all the way Trough. Without them the project would not have been possible.”

Joining one of the guided tours visitors get an insight into ibug ́s, as well as the brownfield ́s history, background information about the artworks and their makers and a lot of amusing or interesting stories about the last 10 years of the festival.

It ́s a cooperation between ibug, KulturTragWerk Sachsen e.V., Chemnitzer Wirtschaftsförderungs-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH and the Sächsischen Zentrum für Kultur-und Kreativwirtschaft. The idea of ibug The ibug ́s roots go back to the year 2006, the small saxonian city Meerane, an artist called Tasso and his pursuit of development.

The first small get-together over 10 years ago meanwhile became an internationally known festival for urban art and culture. Traditionally taking place at the last weekend in August somewhere in West-Saxony, an industrial brownfield is opened for Streetart, Graffiti and MediaArtists from all over the world. Each one of them brings in his or her creativity into a synthesis of the arts. The mix of genres, styles, materials and techniques as well as the history of the brownfield play a key role in the annual experiment.Beyond the festival itself, the ibug spreads deeper into the city this year. Before and during the creative phase vacant shops and facades along the Brühl, one of the main shopping roads in Chemnitz, serve as a canvas for the ibug-artists.

More photos:

Official links for ibug 2017:

www.ibugart.de

www.facebook.com/ibugart

www.twitter.com/ibugart

www.youtube.com/ibugart

www.vimeo.com/ibugart

ISSA Team

ISSA has been an official Media Partner for ibug 2017