Nau Ivanow is a creation space located in Barcelona’s Sagrera district, and its work focuses on the professionalisation of live arts. It has been part of the Barcelona City Council’s Xarxa de Fàbriques de Creació [Creation Factories Network] since 2011 and has become a benchmark in residencies, mentoring and the professionalisation of arts companies and groups.

More than a space, Nau is a creative refuge: a place of welcome, trial and error, experimentation and research. An environment where companies can work unhurriedly, in good conditions, feeling not just like users but rather the natural inhabitants of a system that nurtures them and gives them projection.

Nau Ivanow takes a long-term approach to its project, based essentially on three cornerstones:

Professionalisation_Mentoring and the provision of tools and resources to boost companies’ artistic growth process in a clear commitment to creating a fairer sector and a better status for its stakeholders.

Cultural policies_Active participation in cultural policies, realising its privileged position and its responsibility to the sector, while also remaining true to the project’s values.

Art and territory_Becoming an open space where the practice of art can generate collective knowledge that is capable of building new discourses and structures.

Residencies are the main focus of Nau’s work; all the projects conducted there share a clear and steadfast commitment to engage in research and experimentation in live arts, striving at all times to create or maintain decent working conditions throughout the companies’ creation process, while also providing them with assistance and resources so that they can bring their projects to fruition. 

Images: ©Nora Baylach

Mission 

Nau Ivanow’s mission is to work to foster the professionalisation of performing arts companies and groups and to work towards bringing about a social transformation through arts in the surrounding territory.  

Vision 

Nau’s vision is to become an international benchmark in professionalisation and residencies of performing arts, based on two cornerstones: accompaniment, both artistic and management, and active participation in cultural policies at all levels. 

It also seeks to be a space where art and education become a meeting point to promote the growth of the artists in Nau and for the people who live in the surrounding area. 

VALUES

The Nau Ivanow project has always stood out for being faithful to the values that have moulded the institution’s history, projects and the way that it has developed and grown. These values, constantly reviewed and expanded, must shape the way that all the people who are part of it work and who are bound to work and to commit to upholding these values.  

You can consult an spanish version here. If you need any clarification you can email us.

Images: Jordi Buxó

At the end of the 1960s, the entrepreneur Victor Ivanow Bauer built the head offices of his paint company, Ivanow, SA, in the district of la Sagrera, where it remained until the 80s. The building, designed by the architect Jordi Figueres Anmella, was officially opened in 1968. The growth of the business and the urban development of the city of Barcelona obliged the company to relocate to the Zona Franca. The original building was subsequently owned by different textile companies until it was abandoned towards the end of the 1990s.  At this point, in 1997, it was purchased by the architect Xavier Basiana, thus giving birth to Nau Ivanow as a multidisciplinary space. Since 2006 it has been managed by the Fundació Sagrera, which took over from the Associació Cultural La Nau Ivanow.

In the year 2010, the facility embraced the performing arts, and the Institute of Culture of the Barcelona City Council purchased the building to afford the project continuity within the framework of the Fàbriques de Creació [Creation Factories] programme.

In 2015, Nau Ivanow embarked upon a process of internationalization to generate links all over the world, becoming a two-way gateway for numerous initiatives and companies.

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You can consult an spanish version here. If you need any clarification you can email us.