Ljubljana glows with festive lighting and nine Christmas trees are adorning the city. May again this year December be a month of good wishes for the future.

The meaning of the festive decoration

This year's decoration is called "Long live!", Its author is Urban Modic. Life as we know it is one of the major puzzles and peculiarities of nature and the universe, which is why the author, as he explains, especially honoured it this year. "By decorating, we will also touch on the current situation, look to the future and symbolically overcome the inconveniences that turned our world upside down."

As Urban Modic writes, this year's New Year's decoration of Ljubljana focuses on life, its vulnerability and at the same time, endurance. Some elements and sets are new, but a large part of the sculptures is original, the work of the late author Zmago Modic, newly conceived in meaningful units.

Photo: Anže Petkovšek

All the beings we live on earth today have a common ancestor who lived before approx. four billion years. This is a single-cell LUCA (last universal common ancestor). LUCA begins its story in the center of Ljubljana, above Prešeren Square. The stories depicted by other streets and squares are related to living conditions or to life itself. By decorating the streets and squares, the expansion of the universe is shown. Phenomena such as constellations, planetary systems, comets and other celestial matter are staged. An important chapter of decoration is also the development of complex living beings, marine and terrestrial, and their reproduction. The minerals that are a condition for the existence of life are shown in their crystalline form. Through art and mathematics, especially geometry, we touched on the complex mind and the ability to think abstractly.

Photo: Rajko Grimšič

Life on earth is highly competitive. As we are currently fighting an extraordinary battle with microbes as a species, our victory is shown. The virus appears on Miklošičeva street, but it has already been found and successfully labelled by the antibody. Along the banks of the Ljubljanica river, with the help of trees, the expansion of the universe and life in it is staged, and at the same time the installation as a fixed firework celebrates the optimistic transition from the old to the new.
As a whole, the decoration emphasizes the general tendency towards balance and equivalence.

The festive atmosphere will also conjure up nine Christmas trees

There will be a total of nine Christmas trees on Ljubljana's squares and streets: on Prešeren Square, in front of and in the City Hall, on Old square, Levstik square, Mala ulica street, in front of Figovec restaurant, on Trdinova street and Ljubljana Castle.