The 11th edition of iMapp Bucharest, themed PAST.FORWARD, will take place on 19–20 September in Constitution Square, as part of Bucharest Days, a release informs.
This year’s edition brings to Bucharest seven international video-mapping winners for a new round of the Winners League, along with a special moment dedicated to gymnastics great Nadia Comaneci.
“iMapp Bucharest Winners League returns in 2026 with a new edition dedicated to digital art, music and technology. Over two days, Bucharest will once again become a meeting space for international video-mapping artists, audiences and major names in electronic and live music,” the organizers said. This year’s event continues the project that for more than a decade has transformed the 23,000-square-meter façade of the Palace of Parliament into a space for digital creation and monumental audiovisual experiences.
The 2026 theme, PAST.FORWARD, explores the dialogue between past and future through memory, heritage, technology and imagination. The seven competing works offer different perspectives on time and memory, with the Palace of Parliament becoming an integral part of each narrative.
“The fact that iMapp Bucharest reached its 11th edition says something important about how Bucharest’s public has come to view this event: not only as a large-scale show, but as a cultural landmark of the city. In 11 years, iMapp has built a tradition around digital art and has brought new perspectives and artists into dialogue with a very broad audience. We are glad to carry forward this beautiful dream of Bucharesters, which has grown together with the city and its public, and to turn this tradition into a starting point for new forms of expression, new technologies and new ways of transforming public space through art,” said Mihaela Paun, director of the Bucharest Municipality Cultural Center – ARCUB.
The iMapp Bucharest 2026 programme brings two days of video-mapping shows, music, entertainment and outdoor experiences, centred on the international Winners League competition.
Seven international artists and studios – winners of competitions held by partner festivals in Hungary, Japan, Germany, France, China, the United States and Brazil – will compete for the iMapp Bucharest 2026 Grand Prize.
An international jury will award the Jury Prize, while the public will be able to vote for their favourite work by sending a normal-rate SMS to 1755, selecting the Audience Award winner.
As the 2026 edition also marks 50 years since Nadia Comaneci’s historic performance at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, a special video-mapping moment will be dedicated to the gymnast and her impact on global sport.
