A contribution to industrial culture in Saxony
Augen auf ibug | Perspectives of the ibug Festivals 2013-2023
A shop window exhibition in Werdau town centre
October – December 2023
Vernissage for our open weekend | 14:00 on 11.11.2023 at Tuchfabrik Werdau
On display are panoramic perspectives from 11 years of ibug festivals, selected and created from the PanoramaStreetline archive. They can be seen in shop windows at the marketsquare, in August-Bebel-Straße (No. 23) and in the Tuchfabrik Werdau. Come to the Tuchfabrik (August-Bebel-Straße 87/89) on the weekend of 11/12 November 2023 for an open addition to the exhibition with a vernissage and the photographer Jörg Dietrich in attendance.
Our exhibition is a joint project with the association “Wir in Werdau”, a co-operation with the ibug Festival and is sponsored by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.
The world-renowned ibug festival (short for Industriebrachenumgestaltung) is a product of south-west Saxony. It was launched in 2006 by graffiti artist Tasso in Meerane and took place on brownfield sites in Meerane in the first few years. Since 2012, it has been travelling through cities in the region and has already taken place in Zwickau, Crimmitschau, Limbach-Oberfrohna, Glauchau, Plauen and Reichenbach. After 2017, Chemnitz and Flöha were added to the list of venues, and this year Leipzig for the first time.
The core idea of ibug is to bring together artists (m/f/d) from all over the world to create a transient work of art. Street art, installations and multimedia art are utilised. The artists are free in terms of content, but often incorporate the history and architecture of the respective industrial wasteland. According to the ibug organisers, up to 100 international artists come together for ibug every year. The event is rounded off by several festival weekends on the respective site with a programme of music, film and design.
Since 2014, the PanoramaStreetline team has been photographically accompanying the annual events and documenting them in series of photographs. The focus of our photographic work is on the interaction between architecture and art. The wide-ranging panoramic compositions of ibug locations illustrate how the artists interact with each other, complement each other and incorporate the theme of the respective wasteland. At the same time, we show what framework the architecture of the location provides for the artists and how their design and ideas change our perception of the buildings and architecture. In doing so, they sometimes cover entire building façades, large interior spaces or small-scale spatial structures, right through to spatial artworks that extend across all sides of a room or stairwell. Last but not least, depending on the location, ibug also repeatedly creates opportunities for street art to radiate into the townscape, comment on it, change it and have a lasting effect.
Our exhibition is intended to serve as inspiration and at the same time as a stimulus to reflect on our industrial history and how we could deal with the remaining legacy of the industrial age in terms of design.
Panoramas of the ibug festivals already published in our archive:
ibug 2018 | Needle and sinker factory of the VEB Kombinat Textima · Chemnitz · Germany
ibug 2013 | Eisenwerk · Zwickau · Germany
ibug 2022 | Buntpapierfabrik street front · Floeha · Germany
Chemnitz | IBUG 2018 | Sisyphus Room · Chemnitz ·
ibug 2014 | Gutenbergstrasse · Crimmitschau · Germany
Examples of other ibug streetlines from the exhibition “Augen auf ibug“:
ibug 2021 | Flöha | Buntpapierfabrik | Artists: Robert Deutsch
ibug 2017 | Chemnitz | VEB Spezialmaschinenfabrik | Artists: Luca di Maggio
ibug 2013 | Zwickau | Eisenwerk | Artists: HiFi, Threehouse, Lean Frizzera, Jemine, Eitel u.a.
ibug 2019 | Reichenbach/Vogtland | Bahnbetriebswerk | Artists: Cristian Scutaru (Rumänien)
Apropo, the Werdau cloth factory is itself a little sight. If you look up, you can hardly miss the restored clothmaker’s frieze.
KLEINSTADT/FUTURE Werdau