AFTER 2025: CULTURE IS DEFINED BY THE HORIZON
written by ANDREJA REPIČ AGREŽ
“Society is defined by borders, culture is defined by the horizon”, with this sentence by James P. Cars (American professor of history and literature of religion) I often concluded presentations of the concept and program of the European Capital of Culture Nova Gorica – Gorica. Presentations that were listened to by schoolchildren, entrepreneurs, representatives of various European cities, ambassadors, tourism workers and many others. All always with enthusiasm and sincere interest in what was happening in Nova Gorica and Gorica in 2025. And I always had the feeling that they understood the meaning and magnitude of the project, because during the presentation I myself got goosebumps, and in the eyes of the listeners I saw enthusiasm, with a hint of surprise and at the same time a deep understanding of what we wanted to convey to them.
Because, “art is a feeling”. This is the second quote that has remained deeply in my memory. It was uttered by the Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima during his visit to Nova Gorica at the presentation of the Kaki, the Tree of Life project, which was part of the official GO! program. 2025. And the European Capital of Culture project certainly aroused and left many feelings that we will continue to process for some time.
For me, the journey connected to the European Capital of Culture began on July 1, 2022, my first day of employment at the public institution GO! 2025 as Marketing Manager. I had been following the project for a long time and on December 18, 2020, I was jumping around my home kitchen like crazy when Nova Gorica was declared the second European Capital of Culture 2025 (Chemnitz was declared a few weeks before). I usually have more obscure memories of where exactly I was during a landmark event (such as the death of Tito, the death of Freddy Mercury, the attack on the New York Twin Towers), so this memory from the kitchen is all the more precious to me.
All of us who joined the GO! 2025 public institution were literally “thrown into the water” at the beginning, and it was no different for me. In my first week on the job, I participated in the presentation of the new corporate image of GO! 2025, and just a few weeks later I was presenting the idea of borderlessness in our “sister” Chemnitz. Every month there was a new challenge, and the closer we got to 2025, the more frequent these challenges became. A few months after starting work, I had a conversation with Ivan Šarar from the ECoC Rijeka 2020, who shared his experiences with me and my colleagues, and especially advice on what to avoid (not only to be successful, but also to maintain our mental health). Now that I read the minutes of this meeting with a little distance, I see that we avoided almost nothing. But that is also part of reality. We learn from mistakes (almost exclusively) on our own skin. Each European Capital of Culture is its own universe, and although we receive information from other capitals and exchange experiences with them (for this there is the EcoC Family and annual meetings of past, current and future Capitals of Culture), in the end we are most defined by the space we are in and the socio-political situation that surrounds us.
It is absolutely clear that Nova Gorica and Gorizia are defined by the border that runs between them. It is a state border, a linguistic border, an administrative border, and last but not least, the border of two different cultures, Latin and Slavic. When I asked various artists what the first thought that comes to mind when they hear the word border is, Tomi Janežič answered – skin. Because we all have skin, people, society, even family, and what is essential about skin is transition. “If we think about borders in a rigid way, if we think that borders are barriers, we somehow miss the point,” said Janežič. So it is not necessary that we always view borders as a negative phenomenon. After all, Nova Gorica would never have been created and existed without a border.
Seeing beyond (especially political) borders was the groundbreaking and defining idea of GO! 2025, and the slogan GO! Borderless was always seen by the team as something that does not only refer to the political concept of borders, but as an idea that opens up new perspectives and gives us the freedom to do things differently. Of course, ideas are one thing, reality is another. And what did the European Capital of Culture bring to the space?
The first analyses of the ECOC so far have focused mainly on numbers – the number of events held, the number of participants in the project, the increase in the number of tourists – because these are the easiest to measure. And the numbers are impressive, there is no doubt about that. Especially if we look at them from the perspective of the team that led the European Capital of Culture. The public institution GO! 2025, which was responsible for the official GO! 2025 program, employed a maximum of 17 people (often even fewer due to high turnover). This is certainly by far the smallest team that has worked on an ECOC. Of course, there were also external collaborators, students and a team on the Italian side (EZTS GO), who worked on other projects in addition to the ECOC. In Chemnitz, 97 people were employed for the ECOC, about 100 people were involved in the municipal administration, and they also had a few hundred volunteers. For comparison: the Chemnitz application book (which is the “bible” for the implementation of the ECOC) is about as extensive as the Nova Gorica application book.
And although we implemented all the projects of the official program that were planned in 2025, other things caused us problems. With the great idea of borderlessness (and the idea of doing things differently), we, as a public institution, were caught in the wheels of administration and increasing bureaucratization (which is generally characteristic of all pores of today’s society). Due to the unique nature of the project, our work was not routine. We did not have seasons, cyclical events, like other public institutions in the field of culture, instead we had over 90 very different projects, each taking place according to its own timeline, culminating in the year 2025. I myself made another key mistake: at the very time when we were most intensively writing various reports, I read David Graeber’s book Bullshit, which talks about the increasing amount of (bureaucratic) work – work that is unnecessary and meaningless. Fortunately, the content saved me – culture and artistic events, which flooded us every week.
It is no secret that other public institutions in the field of culture in Nova Gorica have not taken the European Capital of Culture for granted. Ivan Šarar advised us that the ECOC should have the function of a plasticine, connecting public institutions and non-governmental organizations working in the field of culture. Unfortunately, we had far too small a team to be able to implement this effectively. And although at the beginning we made a little plasticine as our promotional gift, we probably should have had tons of it so that we could “glue” together the Gorizian cultural figures who saw the ECOC through their different needs and interests. Above all, at this point, a big difference was visible between the Slovenian and Italian perceptions of culture. It was clear that in Italy culture is one of the key building blocks not only of society, but also of tourism and the economy. They finance culture significantly and are extremely proud of it. Therefore, it is not surprising that there was a tendency to appropriate the ECOC a little. On the other hand, culture in Slovenia is still perceived as something that is a matter of prestige and does not have much connection with people. Slovenians do not identify as a nation of self-confident citizens with enviable achievements (which anyone who looks at us from the outside can see). We are fortunate that the vision and ambition of the Ministry of Culture are radically changing this logic.
The European Capital of Culture had the status of a project of national importance in Slovenia. With a significant budget for the program and extraordinary support from national institutions (the Municipality of Nova Gorica, the Ministry of Culture, the Slovenian Tourist Board), we in the team felt that we were not alone. Nevertheless, as happens with other ECOCs, we had a large fluctuation of people, all of whom came with the same enthusiasm, but left for various reasons. We also changed leadership. And last but not least, we changed premises. From the offices at the train station (where the ECOC was born) we moved to Erjavčeva Street, from there to Delpinova Street (which was the headquarters of the program department next to Xcentr and the communications office), and then expanded to Kidričeva Street (where the management and international departments were located). These locations were eventually joined by EPIC and its café.
But in the end we survived. Extremely exhausted, half-crazy and still in disbelief that we had pulled off the European Capital of Culture. Surely everyone on the team can name at least 5 gems they saw in 2025, that touched them, defined them and moved them somewhere. We won’t see such an extraordinary frequency of cultural and artistic events again for a long time, but the desire to continue to fill the senses (through art) certainly remained.
Borderlessness is a very big story. It is important not only for Europe (and the European Commission, which in the year of Covid and border closures bravely highlighted this topic and chose Nova Gorica, together with cross-border Gorizia, to implement the European Capital of Culture project), the idea is important for all of us who live in this area. Going beyond borders is fundamentally a shift in thinking, a search for new paths and new possibilities. It would be utopian to expect that all the big changes will happen in 2025, but the fact is that this year the starting gun was fired (if I can use sports jargon when talking about culture) with which we begin the race. And this is not a sprint, this is a long-distance race.
If we are smart, we will stretch the Year of Culture 2025 into something that defines and builds both cities and the people in these cities long into the future. This does not depend only on municipal authorities and current politics, it is influenced by all of us who live in this area. It is up to us to choose every day. And if culture is our example, the choice will still remain very diverse. However, it would be utopian to expect that information will just fly to us by itself, no one will personally address us, invite us to the theater, to exhibitions, concerts, talks, performances, as was (possibly) happening in 2025. We are now experienced enough to do it ourselves. There are no excuses. We have a wealth of cultural institutions on both sides of the state border, numerous alternative spaces, a multitude of festivals, and even in 2026 there will be some cultural event almost every day. We just have to look for it.
And ultimately, instead of ranting, let’s look beyond the borders and towards the horizon. Somewhere over the horizon, there is something new.