The Pride Parade will take place in Ljubljana on Saturday, 14 June 2025, with the central message: System rebooting. Community persists.

The Pride Parade is the central event of the Ljubljana Pride Festival. It is a public manifestation intended to break the silence, to rebel against the ostracization of homosexuality, the occupation of public space, the presentation of the life and work of the LGBTIQ+ community, the promotion of human rights, equal opportunities and freedom of choice.

The Pride Day will traditionally colour the Congress Square with a rainbow of community, cultural, political and artistic elements that will take place throughout the day and culminate with a march through the streets of Ljubljana and an evening program on the stage of the June in Ljubljana festival.

The parade city is an important opportunity for the Slovenian LGBTIQ+ community to present its activities, life and cultural and artistic creation in a public space. The organizers of the Pride Parade 2025 emphasize that the fight for equality cannot exist separately from the fight against digital hatred. And hate speech and hateful acts are largely directed against the LGBTIQ+ community. Hate speech and hateful acts, regardless of the space in which they occur, threaten the fundamental values of a democratic society, and therefore require systemic changes that will ensure safety, dignity and equal rights for all. Let this year's Pride Parade be a reminder that the system is rebooting, but our community persists.

Kings & Queens & Criminal Queers

As part of the Ljubljana Pride Festival, Marijo Županov's exhibition Kings & Queens & Criminal Queers will be on display in the Glass Atrium of the City Hall from 11 June to 3 July 2025. Marijo Županov actively contributes to the development of the queer community in Ljubljana. He draws most of his inspiration from the local drag scene, which he regularly supports with his photography.

He sees the drag community as the foundation of creativity and solidarity within the local LGBTIQ+ scene. According to him, it is drag artists who create not only cultural life in the city, but also bonds of friendship and a sense of belonging – so that LGBTIQ+ individuals in Ljubljana do not feel alone.

The exhibition Kings & Queens & Criminal Queers builds on his established exhibition oeuvre and expands it with a series of polaroids. These act as documentary material that bears witness to the fragility and vulnerability of the local queer community – they are traces of personal experiences with hate speech and violence. The inspiration for the exhibition title comes from the melancholic beauty of the song Beautiful Boys, which tells the story of an outcast orphan.