"Down Town Gallery" overwhelming streetart in a world war bunker in Krefeld Germany

This was my third streetart exposition project in the Krefeld gallery series I curated and organized in colaboration with the city marketing Krefeld.
This time 21 local and international artists filled up a world war bunker within 5 days with their artworks concerning the topic ” Shelter for humanity and human dignity”
After the past projects "Wood Art Gallery" in 2015 and the "Rhine Side Gallery" in 2017 the citizens and visitors of Krefeld were again asked to discover the creation of a new public pop up art gallery. This time we were in the very center of the city close to the main station!!! Many visitors have seen this place now from a very different perspective as we transformed it from a bunker into an art gallery where artists from different countries colaborate and send critical or philosophical messages, utopies and ideas to make the world a better place.
All together we created a narritive space in which every square centimeter carries meaning and in which the stories of the artists find connection and shelter.
The Down Town Gallery is in the city center open gratis for everybody, but anyway there is a distance to everyday life as it is a closed and dark building, with deeper floors in which the citysounds completely disappear. This isolation is not typical for a streetart place but it helps the visitor to completely fall into the stories, poetry and atmosphere of the place in which the past meets the present and the future.
By means of a coherent scenery and setting, a wide targetgroup was moved to think about contemporary questions. The aim was to transport knowledge and to stimulate the courage of the visitors to follow their own perception and opinion and to support the belief in the community and the world. The experience of the paintings and the space should touch the visitor and make him get deep into it and involved. That is why dialogue and interaction are the central elements of the concept of the exposition.
For me it was a challenging but very valuable task to sort the artist’s ideas, they came up with at the end of our first meeting day in the bunker, and write a storyline for it in order to connect them logically and thematically, find the right order of presentation and determine the workspaces for each artist.
Besides the artist's dialougue other connecting elements were the nameboards Fabio Fedele painted for every artist in the same ornamental style next to the paintings. Hoker One also wrote the titles of the paintings in his perfect freehand spraycan calligraphy on the arc over each paintingspace.
By this thematical orden of the paintings, visual connection, and lots of (team-) work we could make an international artist dialougue about contemporary society and politics visible and experienceable as one total common artwork.
This dialogue the visitor could find in the exposition flyer, which makes it easyer for the visitors to make contact with the paintings and the ideas behind.
Other elements of the exposition were a large banner of the visual of the song “Es beginnt in Dir - It starts inside of you” by the musician Maximnoise. I heared this song in the radio and as it fit perfectly the theme of our exposition I booked him to make a concert at the openingday of the gallery.
The same music video was inspiration for my streetpainting workshop I realised in a house of the documentation of the National Socialism in Krefeld some months before the gallery project. 11 Children from 8 to 15 years painted their own ideas concerning the theme human rights and human dignity. The finished chalk paintings were later exposed in the Down Town Gallery. The childrens participation, their ideas and opinions concerning this theme were an important element of the Down Town Gallery.
Many thanks to all people who made this project possible, organizers, sponsors, supporters and especially to all the great artists and children who made this place and atmosphere so very special and valuable for the people with their artworks. It was a great synergy and atmosphere in this old world war bunker, full of creativity, passion, concentration, dedication, humour, friendship, love and artistic excellence!
Find more information and photos of the gallery projects and many other streetart projects on www.freddart.de
Videoproduction by Bubble B. Prod
Photoproduction by B.G. PicArts
Video Music by Flavia Coelho - "Sunshine remix Panda Dub" and Stand High Patrol - "Along the river"

[@adrianaguadalupearandaserr9671]

El arte nos salva! Felicidades Fredda por tu talento y liderazgo y a todo el equipo de artistas que nos dan enorme regalo. 💗👏

[@frederikefreddawouters8611]

Muchas gracias Adriana, me da mucho gusto tu commentario que sale del corazon. Saludos

[@hunna8875]

killin this💪

[@buffplums]

Hi I’m curious about this bunker ... I was in the RAF at Bradbury Barracks in 1984 and I heard that there was a huge underground facility for storing WWII Panzer tanks or something like that and that the facility was underneath the barracks site as it was a Wehrmacht site during the way?
I heard that the entrance used to near the main entrance but had been sealed off and built upon and that the underground garrison was flooded. Apparently a diver drowned whilst trying to find another way in.
Would this bunker be the bunker that I was told about? It certainly looks like it held large vehicles. Any information would be great fully received as I’m fascinated with military history. Where can I find more about the story of your bunker please? Many thanks