iMapp 2025: Bucharest’s video mapping festival celebrates 10 years with digital art, supercars and music

iMapp Bucharest, one of the world’s largest video mapping festivals, will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this month with a weekend of digital art, music, gastronomy, and supercars, organizers announced Tuesday, September 9.

On September 20–21, Constituței Square will host a lineup that combines art and entertainment, featuring international DJs, large-scale projections on the 23,000-square-meter façade of the Palace of the Parliament, the Gumball 3000 supercar rally, and the Food Truck Festival. Admission to all events will be free.

Started a decade ago as an experiment in New Media art, iMapp Bucharest has grown into a global competition, bringing together winners of prestigious light festivals from around the world. This year’s theme, Art Is All Around, will showcase video mapping works from the winners of its seven partner festivals - Chongqing International Light Art Festival (China), Genius Loci Weimar Festival (Germany), Jakarta Light Festival (Indonesia), LUMA Projection Arts Festival (USA), 1minute Projection Mapping Competition (Japan), Video Mapping Festival (France), and Zsolnay Light Festival (Hungary).

Moreover, this edition, organizers and partners will honor two Romanian artists from the world cultural heritage, George Enescu and Constantin Brâncuși, through two video mapping works created by Carmen Lidia Vidu and Mindscape Studio.

Creart and Artexim will present a special moment built around a fragment from George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, performed by the Orchestre National de France – conducted by Cristian Măcelaru, marking the conclusion of the 2025 George Enescu International Festival.

Meanwhile, the Romanian Cultural Institute will unveil a video mapping work announcing the opening of the exhibition “BRÂNCUȘI – The Birth of Modern Sculpture,” which can be visited until January 2026 at the Hart Museum in Amsterdam, thanks to a collaboration with Centre Pompidou Paris, the custodian of the largest and most representative Constantin Brâncuși collection.

Musical highlights include performances by Belgian DJ HVMZA, who will appear on stage with pan flute virtuoso Gheorghe Zamfir and the Bucharest Metropolitan Orchestra.

On Sunday, more than 100 luxury and custom cars from the Gumball 3000 rally will arrive in Bucharest as part of the race’s Istanbul-to-Ibiza route. The spectacle will feature celebrity drivers, influencers, and music stars, with headline performances by Nigerian afrobeats star Adekunle Gold, Grammy-winning rapper Eve, and Dutch DJ Afrojack, who will play a joint set with YouTube star Vikkstar.

From Bucharest, the rally will continue its journey, passing through Belgrade, Florence, Nice (where the Annual Gumball 3000 Foundation Charity Gala will take place - the funds raised supporting various youth programs worldwide), Valencia, and Ibiza.