Kranj 2025 understands the concept of culture wider than the concept of art and language. Due to its operational smart, green, sustainable concepts, our candidacy strongly guides the discourse between culture, nature, tourism, and ecology. It binds it to the sustainable development strategy, which is going to have long-term effects on the people and the economy of the city and the region, enhance living conditions, strengthen the image of the region in its inhabitants’ eyes, and raise the region’s international profile.

Our bid and proposed cultural strategy strives to speak as the voice of all small cities and their communities. By connecting actors throughout the region, we aim to equip the cultural sector and invite new strength and talent from the thriving cultural and creative industries in the cities and countryside of the Gorenjska region.

New models of cultural management, an elevated role for culture in public policy, the emergence of community-planned co-creation spaces, and the search for cultural production resources, along with an international flair and the blooming of new partnerships, form our pursuit of sustainable development.

Urbanity in the embrace of the countryside and natural environments will be the core of our bottom-up professionalized participative cultural models. Central to our strategy are programs that have been curated and elaborated, by local communities.

We believe in the transformative power of the “European Capital of Culture” title (ECC) in recognizing, celebrating, and safeguarding Kranj’s contributions for decades to come.