Again this year, Ljubljana celebrates 8 February, the Slovenian Cultural Holiday. Public institutions and many non-governmental organizations in the field of culture have prepared a diverse program to this end. In the City of Ljubljana, we also invest heavily in culture and art, as we are aware that culture is an investment and not an expense because it significantly enriches life in our city.

The Slovenian Cultural Holiday is an opportunity to highlight the importance of culture and art in Ljubljana. In addition to maintaining the infrastructure in the field of culture, we support many artists through various programs.

In 2021, we earmarked 49,034,857 EUR in the budget of the City of Ljubljana for culture, including investment projects, which is 10.4 million EUR more than in 2020.

Investments in the field of culture

It was the investment funds that enabled the completion of the renovation of two very important buildings in Ljubljana: Villa Zlatica, the home of the Mayor of Ljubljana Ivan Hribar, and the Cukrarna Gallery, which became the new home for contemporary art.

In addition, last year, we renovated the stage at the Šentjakob Theatre, which celebrated its centenary, built a new building at Stolba 8, managed by the Ljubljana Castle Public Institution, and completed the project of installing a new roof at the Križanke Summer Theatre. Last year, we also started the renovation of the former Rog factory into Centre Rog, where the newly established public institution Centre Rog Creative Centre will manage the program.

We have successfully built upon all these renovations with content that is opening the doors to the artistic community and with which we are successfully addressing the audience.

Support for artists and non-governmental organizations

The epidemic has significantly affected the self-employed in culture, who are also otherwise the most vulnerable group in the field of culture. Therefore, we have paid particular attention to supporting independent artists and non-governmental cultural organizations. We increased funds for cultural projects of non-governmental organizations and the self-employed in culture by 186,486 EUR or 5.4% in 2021 compared to 2020. In 2021, we financed 157 cultural projects, that is 26 projects more than in 2020. In addition, we provide funds to 56 non-governmental cultural organizations for four-year programs, for which we allocated 2,328,360 EUR in 2021.