Introduction
This is a story of two cities and the life that unfolds between them. The first city celebrated the millennium of its first mention two decades ago, while the second will celebrate its 80th anniversary in two years. The first, Gorizia, is in Italy, and the second, Nova Gorica, is in Slovenia. They are divided by old streets, railway tracks and courtyards, yet they meet at a symbolic mosaic in the centre of the divided square with two names – Piazza Transalpina / Trg Evrope (Transalpina Square / Europe Square) – which was ceremonially unveiled in 2004. At that time, with Slovenia’s accession to the European Union, the iron fence between the two cities was dismantled, and a symbolic borderless space was created. However, the physical border returned during the COVID-19 pandemic when the entire area was once again fenced off, and interactions between the residents of both cities were severely restricted.
Nevertheless, neither the pandemic nor the physical barriers were able to limit human connection. Soon after the fence was erected in March 2020, people began leaving messages on it along the border, children left drawings for their relatives on the other side, and the mayors of both cities would meet there regularly when permitted. Despite the restrictions, people sought contact across the border, sometimes engaging in smuggling, while in other instances simply seeking to see their relatives. The resilience of cross-border ties, whether driven by necessity or the desire to maintain familial and social connections, underscores the deep-rooted bonds between the communities living in the territory.
Today, the story of Gorizia and Nova Gorica is one of state borders, multicultural identities, prejudices, and cross-border interactions, with Italian soldiers sometimes performing border controls—even within the Schengen Area. It is also the story of a shared vision that began in 2016, when both towns embarked on a project to become the first borderless European Capital of Culture in 2025. As part of this initiative, the two cities have jointly launched activities and projects designed to foster connections and strengthen the exchange of intercultural practices and skills. With their joint candidacy—led by Slovenia, with Nova Gorica as the winning candidate—they began implementing programs to promote cooperation and collaboration between public institutions, cultural organizations, and other stakeholders. In December 2020, Nova Gorica was, together with cross-border Gorizia, named European Capital of Culture for 2025, along with the German city of Chemnitz.
Transborder Strategies and a New Model for ECoC
The uniqueness of the project lay in its ability to promote the idea of a new model of how to implement the European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) initiative to cross-border cities, integrating national cultural strategies while fostering collaboration, affirming European values, and positioning culture as a shared, transnational asset. The proposal, in its primal idea, transcended the traditional cultural sectors, emphasizing intergenerational creativity and strengthening the potential for sustainable, cross-border cultural events and festivals. Central to the cross-border candidacy was the integration of a cross-border cultural strategy into both communities.1 This would ensure its continuity as a long-term policy for future administrations, particularly in local governance and management. To support this goal, bilateral commissions were established to streamline cooperation between the two governments, ensuring that cross-border initiatives would be well-coordinated and effective. Both municipalities also began developing a shared urban development plan, complemented by a joint tourism and city-branding strategy, primarily implemented by the joint interregional office EGTC GO (European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation). The office led the entire preparatory phase of the candidacy process, which was initiated before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The period of the candidatorial phase opened a space for reflection and debate on the enduring ideological significance of language, history, and past interpretations—factors that continue to shape cross-border relations. Throughout, the project has been deliberately designed as a bottom-up initiative, actively engaging citizens in the creation and production of cultural programs while respecting local sensibilities. By directly involving residents and fostering collaboration across social and generational lines, it advanced lasting cross-border partnerships and demonstrated that culture is a transnational good capable of transcending political, historical, and generational boundaries. The programmes were therefore developed in close alignment with environmental, educational, and economic priorities, ensuring that cross-border cooperation delivers tangible benefits to everyday life. Promoting sustainable mobility, strengthening physical connectivity between the cities, and fostering cooperation between young professionals, Gorizia and Nova Gorica offered a model of how neighbouring cities can transform shared challenges into opportunities for creative, inclusive, and sustainable cultural development. For the first time, ECoC offered a framework that went beyond symbolic gestures, enabling concrete projects, joint productions, knowledge exchange, and the creation of a shared sense of space. It opened new forms of cooperation not only in the cultural sector, but also in education, sports, and economic development, fostering initiatives that carry long-term benefits rather than being limited to short-term political agendas oriented towards a mayor’s term in office.
Revaluating Border Spaces and Creating Community Engagement
Border areas are perceived as zones of neglect—peripheries of national development, burdened with the economic and psychological legacies of division. The transformation of these areas into dynamic spaces of innovation requires both political will, funds, and ideas on how to incorporate them into the urban landscape. It is here that the GO! 2025 Nova Gorica – Gorizia project acquires its most transformative dimension: the revaluation of border space as a resource for cultural, social, and ecological renewal. This was the opportunity to transform geographic proximity and long-standing border “grey zones” of coexistence into meaningful cultural connections, where people would be able to meet, interact, play, and learn.
The relationship between present-day Italy and Slovenia has been shaped by wars, shifting borders, forced migrations, and deep ideological divisions. The landscape itself bears the marks of this complex history: between the two towns stand a monastery, a neo-Islamic villa, abandoned checkpoints now turned into museums, a functioning railway station dating back to 1906, and neglected, unoccupied spaces moulded by the events of the 20th century.
On Sabotin Hill, which rises above the towns, traces of the past remain visible — by day, the large hillside inscription “TITO” recalls Yugoslav times, while at night, lights form the tricolour of the Italian flag. These alternating symbols embody the region’s layered memories, past traumas, and enduring stereotypes. Rather than erasing these traces, the new cross-border strategy aims to reinterpret them as shared heritage, transforming symbols of division into symbols of encounter.
In a context of profound historical and social change, cultural institutions must evolve into genuine agents of social transformation, shaping our collective capacity to build a more cohesive society and to dismantle entrenched stereotypes. This dialogue is crucial not only for reconciling with the past but also for imagining a future in which cultural and historical diversity is understood as a resource rather than a source of political division. The debate on how nations interpret their past – especially in border regions where the same events are remembered through opposing perspectives – extends far beyond questions of national identity. Historically, institutions such as museums have often served as instruments for consolidating dominant national narratives, systematically excluding the stories and experiences of minority communities. This exclusion has reinforced a monolithic vision of identity while marginalizing other voices, pushing them to the periphery of collective memory and historical representation.
With these principles in mind, the project of the EPIC district started, the creation of a new participatory district located along the border, designed to foster inclusion, shared activities, cultural dialogue and open reflection on the shared identity and heritage of the Gorizia region.
EPIC – the European Platform for the Interpretation of the 20th Century
The heritage project of the European Capital of Culture GO! 2025 is EPIC, a new participatory cultural centre with a permanent exhibition located in the old storehouse near the Transalpina train station. The renovated building partially opened in August 2025, with the exhibition part to open in November 2025. EPIC has been conceived as a cross-border cultural centre, with a multipurpose conference hall, a cafeteria, a shared working space, as well as temporary and permanent exhibition space.
The permanent exhibition will narrate the history of the territory throughout the 20th century, and it represents an attempt to move away from the divisive narratives of the past, with a commitment to giving voice to personal and diverse perspectives within the Gorizia communities. Through a narrative grounded in personal stories – families divided after the creation of the border, perceptions and stereotypes of “the other” – the exhibition raises critical questions and invites reflection on how to overcome the divisive narratives of the past through a participatory approach. Using participatory methodologies to engage residents of the border area in sharing their stories and concepts of identity, it becomes a platform for inclusion and dialogue in collaboration with its audiences, tackling the historical complexities and existing tensions in the region in an in-depth and critical way.
Through workshops, performances, and conferences, the centre aims to activate the public, promoting the creation and presentation of new stories. The experiences and feelings of individuals of different genders, religious and political orientations, minorities, and postwar immigrant communities will be at the heart of the exhibition. It will give voice to stories portraying the silenced and the ignored, as well as the violence and pain experienced by individual residents during the wars and postwar periods:
(…) Mamma mia … There was a lady in our house who used to go to the demonstrations against the ‘sciavi’2 with a meat pounder in her bag … and she was not the only one.
On demonstrations in March 1946; E. G., born 1930
Things changed. Everything changed overnight. We had a hard time grasping the situation because it was unbelievable how quickly everything fell apart. We were left without a country and forced to apply for citizenship. (…) Suddenly, in this Yugoslavia, Yugoslavs were left without a country. We applied for citizenship and waited to see if we would get it, how everything would turn out, how we would live. Of course, there were changes, but it was different in our minds – we had been born in Yugoslavia, and that’s how we’d been brought up. We, the Yugoslavs, carried Yugoslavia in our hearts. It was a single country, and I didn’t care where we lived, so I decided we’d live here. I was never bothered by the fact that several nations lived together.
On the Slovene Declaration of Independence, L. S., born 1955
Remembering from the subjective perspective of family pain and emotions transmitted across generations means narrating a pain that endures. These are not mere symbolic wounds but represent long-term traumas that can become sources of political manipulation and revisionism in times of instability. The way the past is shaped and interpreted for a collective group – what images or representations of the past a group preserves and celebrates, and which ones it allows to fade – are not trivial questions, especially when dealing with interpretations of the past in multiethnic territories. It is therefore all the more important to strive to understand all stories and to comprehend the pain of the other. Such an approach opens the possibility of a different, far more empathetic understanding of the world around us and of ourselves, transforming space into an open field of discourse on tolerance, respect, and coexistence. Recognizing and illuminating cultural heritage through the intimate stories of its inhabitants – whether through the collection, digitization, and promotion of materials, or through their public evaluation – also offers an opportunity to reflect on professional ethics, professional development, and the design of museums as public spaces of equality and justice. The exhibition was prepared in collaboration with Slovenian and Italian historians and museologists; however, due to the extremely short implementation deadlines following the building’s renovation (completed in June 2025), it has not yet opened to the public.
The debate on the relevance of the transborder European Capital of Culture and the concept of shared titles goes far beyond simple discussions of nationally oriented cultural capitals, as it opens new perspectives on how to build cultural strategies that are more flexible and less driven by national interests (such as the economic impact of the year). Such initiatives remind us that borders – while products of history – need not dictate the future. Through cultural dialogue, participatory interpretation, and the re-evaluation of border urban heritage, frontier cities can become symbols of Europe’s enduring capacity for reinvention.