I’m writing this on a train from Villach to Vienna, a bit distracted by the mountains and meadows and the luxury of the homes outside the window. My time in Ljubljana was magical and I already feel nostalgic for it. I’m already missing its spring-green trees in the many parks and along the riverside, the feeling of relaxation from a pedestrianised centre, the feeling of possibility where so many young people are evident, the sounds of birds and clarinets and of that language completely alien to my ear. I felt like a happy alien or a free prisoner, drawn forever to wander its streets by their magnetic charm. I thought of The Prisoner because the city is like Portmeirion, that model Italianate village in Wales, conceived by Clough Williams Ellis to prove that beautiful architecture was possible. In Ljubljana the aesthetic vision is Joze Plecnik’s* who redesigned the town plan giving it two main flowing routes, a land axis and a water axis. All his street furniture and other features have an ‘arts and crafts’ feeling combined with a stony solidity. The old buildings in the centre are mostly renovated and painted delicate pastel colours. (*The z and c in his name have little birds or v’s above them but I can’t find the script for them.)
It gives an impression that there is a critical mass of creative people who know what a good place should feel like. I spotted lots of ‘thrivable projects and social enterprises.
(A welcome/hangout place for migrants/refugees young people at the train station)
(A cafe staffed by people with learning disabilities)
Of course the reality of living here may feel different, and I didn’t see too much of the industrial or residential outskirts but what I did see of them looked liveable, thanks to the mountain views and parks.
My Airbnb host was very helpful, telling me about co-working spaces, meanwhile projects, established ethical squats, and some unpopular developments on the wrong scale for the city. She took me to an event at the ‘Circulation centre’ – a makerspace and art projects space – where I talked to Stefan and Borut about making a creative life in Ljubljana. The former industrial space has been sold so there are questions about where they go next. Although they came out of the squatting movement they also collaborate with local government and ‘the system’. They are a properly incorporated organisation, and it struck me that Slovenia has terms of constitution for a cultural interest company. In the U.K. culture is not seen as a distinct category of activity and forces actions that are either socially or commercially oriented. I wonder if this comes from a background of particular socialism where Slovenia’s nationhood was nurtured through culture and where companies organised leisure and cultural activities and people were expected to be cultural citizens as well as workers.
(An experimental music event at the Circulation centre)
But things are harder than they were for the creative sector, post crash. In 2013 they had to start paying tax/social insurance at a basic level of €400 a month and received no tax relief, when before artists were in a special category. That said, in Slovenia, people who are essentially unemployed will still often call themselves ‘artists’ probably because of this background and milieu where it gives you credence.
Slovenia is now the wealthiest of all the former Yugoslavian countries and is recovering from the crash with an economy more based on services than agriculture or heavy industry. It seems relatively safe from massive injections of investor capital from abroad that unbalance its development, although there are plans for tall buildings that are being resisted.
In Soviet and Yugoslavian times, it was a lot more industrial, until it de-industrialised in the 1980s and early 1990s. In the City Museum, an exhibition about factories included some oral history films where former workers described production halving in one year.
This quote from 1931 shows the resistant spirit to being forced into communal production that is possibly strong in Slovenia:
“The man in the factory is nothing but a useful machine…..The factory is dirty, terrible and again beautiful. Day after day, several thousand lives fit in it, carrying black faces, wounded hands and the burdens of dark thoughts. Our work is torment and danger, or countenances are soot masks, our hearts flaming crystals. There is a wish for sun, a hope for sun and a belief in sun in each of them. The power of our belief has been hardened by fire, toughened with steel. It keeps on and is supported by a firm awareness: We too are human beings.” Tone Cufar
(Exhibition about industry in the City Museum)
When industry declined, the whole Yugoslav area started to fall apart and Slovenia was independent in 1991, and joined the EU in 2004. Several of the museums I visited included this part of their history as if joining the EU signalled its arrival as an independent and liberated modern country. Another theme strongly represented was the former identity of people as Yugoslavian, as if, although Slovenian identity is a matter of pride, they did not want to alienate those who grew up in that time (and ‘place’).
In general I enjoyed the museums of Ljubljana, although I was literally the only person looking round the displays in all but 2 of the twelve I visited. And of those two where I wasn’t alone, one was a very stylish German couple who seemed to be cultural workers and the other was a school group. It is mystifying how a city full of tourists and good creative ideas can be so unable to attract visitors to its museums. Is the city itself too nice? Are they not promoted? Is it because they are state funded so don’t need to try? I also found this empty museum syndrome in Ravenna, Verona, Genoa and La Spezia so maybe the story here is that I’m too used to a successful London museum sector.
The best cultural experience was Plecnik’s House (and thanks to architect Jernej Markelj, who I met in a cafe, for recommending this).
The most ethically sound experience was the Slovene ethnographic museum ‘about the everyday and the festive’.
The most edgy experience was Metalkova, a former army barracks that was promised for cultural purposes but after delays was squatted and developed as a creative centre in a very grass roots and organic kind of way.
The most informative was the National Museum of Contemporary History. This is the one I felt saddest about its emptiness.
The most moving object was the oldest musical instrument in the world, a Neolithic flute made from a baby bear femur, in the National Museum of Slovenia.
And the most intellectually inaccessible was the contemporary art museum near Metalkova, with a name and brand so confused with its sister museum of modern art, that I can’t remember it.
A month round Europe 