the street is our gallery

The IBUg an Urban Culture Festival in central Germany, a laboratory for international urban artists and a way of life. IBUg your life and get together! What started as an unofficial graffiti Meeting, has developed into an urban culture project of international renown since 2006. Initiated by the artist Tasso, every year in August the international graffiti , street art and media art scene form a unique symposium on free artistic work and experiment with genres, materials and techniques. The site-specific installations engage the past and the industrial architecture to reflect current events and breathe life into the abandoned walls new life.

The ibug will hold its 16th edition this year. The intention of the urban art festival is to invite international artists from various genres to a symposium for exchange and joint artistic creation. This year’s venue is the former coloured paper factory in Flöha, Saxony, which has been abandoned since the mid-1990s.

The wasteland, which as a historical and social site is an extraordinary industrial facility with a long history and became world-famous thanks to the special papers produced there, is to be revived and transformed into a complete artwork during a creative phase over several weeks. Starting on 3 August, around 60 invited creative people want to gradually transform the area by means of painting and graffiti, illustrations and installations, upcycling, and multimedia.

The results of the creative weeks will then be presented to the public on three festival weekends – from 27 to 29 August, from 3 to 5 September and from 10 to 12 September. In accordance with Saxony’s coronavirus regulations, a festival programme, including guided tours and films, music, and performances, as well as special offers and workshops for pupils is planned.

Find the latest information on general conditions and the ibug 2021 programme on www.ibug-art.de.

Since its first edition in 2006, the ibug has become a world-famous urban art festival. Traditionally, an abandoned industrial site in Saxony will be opened as a temporary exhibition on the last weekend of August. The artists focus on experimenting with genres, materials, and techniques, taking into account the past as well as the architecture of the industrial wasteland. The ibug team has received many awards for its commitment, including the “PlusPunkt Kultur” award of the German Federal Association for Cultural Children and Youth Education in 2010, it was one of winners of the “Simply Saxony” idea contest for tourism in Saxony in 2019, and it was one of the winners of the “Denkzeit Event“ competition organised by Saxony’s State Ministry of Science, Culture and Tourism for creative ideas and innovative concepts in implementing existing or new events under coronavirus conditions in 2020.

The ibug festival is a partner of the international project “RESCUE” (Regeneration of disused industrial sites through Creativity in Europe). More information at www.rescue-eu.com.

”I Support Street Art” is proud to actively support IgBU as a Media partner, in an effort to bring the World closer to the best Street Art available!

The IBUg transformed forgotten witnesses of the Saxon industrial culture to temporary total works of art. For Festival presenting artists and organizers on the IBUg-terrain all varieties of Urban Culture in fashion, film, music, design and art. The IBUg raises awareness of the contexts of history, art, culture and architecture and is in a region that is exposed to extensive structural changes by the industrial and demographic change, exemplary impulses in creative dealing with the past.

The site-specific installations reflect the past and the nowadays as well, interact with the industrial architecture and reactivate life in lost places. The festival gives an overview of urban art in movies, fashion, music, design and art as a synthesis. IBUg is at reusing impetus of the past in a creative way in a region, Which has to deal with strong industrial and demographic changes.