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After last year’s intriguing Canvas Bar event in an unused subway tunnel of Berlin, Bombay Sapphire gin is continuing their collaboration with the art world with an exciting new project that we want to introduce to you today: With their new pop-up art campaign, they decided to go BIG. In five German cities, they have claimed the biggest canvas they could get: the walls of buildings.
For four weeks in September, five stunning murals will grace a big wall in Düsseldorf, Köln, Hamburg, Leipzig and – of course – Berlin. For each of the murals they commissioned established local artists: Semor, Jana Wind, Martin Grohs, and Stefan Kunz. But for Berlin, they did something special.
In collaboration with our colleague Joab Nist from Notes of Berlin they opened a call for submission for artists and designers to propose a piece for a very special wall: The backside of Haubentaucher facing the Warschauer Straße station. Of course, the location at the R.A.W. area is very special to every street art fan because the place is practically covered in it. To get your own wall there is certainly a highlight of every artist’s portfolio.
The winner for the contest turned out to be the young Berliner Niklas Reinsberg. Last week, we had the chance to meet up with him on the day his finished mural was revealed.
On our way to Haubentaucher, we could already admire the large mural from the bridge of Warschauer Straße: Two Bombay Sapphire bottles lying on the side transformed into pools. The blue color of the water lets the mural stand out between all the grey of the area around it.
As a young Berliner, the R.A.W. grounds are quite familiar to Niklas as he came here many times before to take photos of the area and the street art, he tells us while proudly showing us his freshly painted mural.
The size of it is quite stunning in fact: It’s 50 meters long and 7 meters high, which is really narrow. It made the design process quite challenging. But Niklas quickly came to a solution for that by placing two bottles on the side to make the best use of the space. The design, he explains, was inspired by the location itself. He had visited the iconic Haubentaucher before and has also been to the pool, so the idea to fill the bottles with a pool came quite naturally.
Seeing his artwork on such a large scale still feels unreal to him, he confessed. But he’s super happy to have won, even though he never expected it. We wanted to know, which other building he would like to design a mural for. But he had something quite different in mind than a building: He would like to cover a sidewalk or street. The idea that people can walk on it and interact with it is something he is fascinated about. We like the sound of that!
Congratulations to Niklas for winning the contest and turning another grey Berlin wall into a colorful, joyful street art mural. We hope to see more of him soon!