The neighbourhood of Drenova is always bringing together cultural and curious people with new contents and at the same time acts as a local coworking space, a place of residence, the exchange of ideas and experiments.

The Bordering Neighbourhood programme was inspired by the idea of exploiting the potentials of the settlement that might become the driving force behind the development of various content aimed at spending quality free time. Sharing knowledge and ideas is the aim of this programme, which will spread over three days.

Culture Day will showcase the microcultural atmosphere of Drenova with an exhibition on the position of women in Croatia and Belgium, which the Drenova team has realised in collaboration with their European Neighbourhood partners from Mons and the world’s first archive of knowledge – the Mundeanum institute.

Nature Day is an all-day outing, during which you will become familiar with the footpaths in Drenova’s cornel (“dren”) forest, while focusing on the cornel and its superpowers, which will be explained by scientists, followed by the tasting of sweets and delicacies, of course. Digital Day is a showcase of state-of-the-art technology, artificial intelligence, the ČAI project, digital assistants and an elaboration on the role of robots in museums.

The announced features will be addressed at length by reputable experts during the daily themed discussions. Special attention will be given to the programmes for the youngest visitors and the area in which they will be introduced to new contents dedicated to the Chakavian vernacular through digital games.

PROGRAMME:
CULTURE DAY
Friday, 9 October 2020
Time: 6 pm – 10 pm
Venue:  Local Heritage Museum of Drenova, HUB Drenova, 138a Drenovski Put, 51000 Rijeka
Programme host: Vesna Lukanović
Culture Day or the microcultural atmosphere of Drenova, with an exhibition opening and choir singing, is a platform for promoting artists from Drenova and introducing the Belgian European Neighbourhood of Mons and the global archive of knowledge – the Mundaneum institute.

6 pm – 6.20 pm – Opening ceremony – Protocol and handover of the time capsule from the Fužine Neighbourhood – the programme will be opened by the Bez Granica and Dren associations and representatives of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, the City of Rijeka and Rijeka 2020.
6.20 pm – 6.30 pm – Performance by the Drenova Mixed Choir – a special programme and brief retrospective
6.30 pm – 7 pm – A Minority in the Majority, exhibition – opening lecture: Snježana Prijić-Samaržija, PhD, UNIRI Rector
7 pm – 7.30 pm – 100 years of feminism in Belgium – introduction of the European Neighbourhood of Mons and the Mundaneum institute, real-time videoconference – opening lecture: Stéphanie Manfroid, Mundaneum
7.30 pm – 8 pm – Limitless Women – website presentation – Davorka Medved and screening of the documentary A Minority in Majority, produced by the Bez Granica association
8 pm – further socialising at the reception with a special programme

NATURE DAY
Saturday, 10 October 2020
Time: 2 pm – 8 pm
Venue:  Local Heritage Museum of Drenova, HUB Drenova, 138a Drenovski Put, 51000 Rijeka, apps will be demonstrated throughout the surrounding area of the museum
Nature Day is an all-day outing dedicated to the superpowers of the cornel, preparing and tasting of various meals and scientific lectures on the cornel as a superplant.

2 pm – 2.30 pm – Limitless cornel – websites / http://dren.bezgranica.hr, digital land registry Dren v2.0 and the mobile app INaturalist “Find the cornel!”, presentation and demonstration, host: Damir Medved
2.30 pm – 4 pm – Footpaths of Drenova and a tour of cornel sites with the INaturalist app and guided by the botanist Boštjan Surina from the Natural History Museum Rijeka

Drenova Neighbourhood Living Room
4.30 pm – 5 pm – Cornel: ancient medicine, new studies, brochure, Dren Association, University of Rijeka, Department of Biotechnology and Faculty of Health Studies
5 pm – 6 pm – Cornel: superplant – lectures

  • Željka Peršurić – University of Rijeka, Department of Biotechnology, Member of the project team “In Search of Superfruit from Our Region”, PhD
  • Boštjan Surina, Natural History Museum Rijeka, botanist, presentation “Biodiversity of the Liburnian karst”, PhD

6 pm – 6.30 pm – Take a picture of the cornel! Best cornel photo competition
6.30 pm – further socialising with cornel specialities and cornel leaf tea

DIGITAL DAY
Sunday, 11 October 2020
Time: 4 pm – 10 pm
Venue: Local Heritage Museum of Drenova, HUB Drenova, 138a Drenovski Put, 51000 Rijeka
Programme host: Damir Medved
Digital Day is a showcase of state-of-the-art technology, artificial intelligence, the ČAI project, digital assistants and an elaboration on the role of robots in museums.

Drenova Neighbourhood Living Room
2 pm – 3 pm – Artificial intelligence can be fun – smart playrooms for kids/programme for children
4 pm – 5 pm – Digital Museum – robots and artificial intelligence in museums, or how to find a needle in a haystack by using the example of the Local Heritage Museum of Drenova digital archives. The programme will be held in collaboration with the University of Pula – Vision Institute of Science and Technology
5 pm – 6 pm – Man vs. Machine – Artist or Artificial Intelligence?!  Clash of artist and artificial intelligence – Antun Ožbolt, artist from Drenova vs. ČAI – creating images in real time
6 pm – 7 pm – ČAI – Chakavian Artificial Intelligence /http://cai.bezgranica.hr – how was it created and how does it work, demonstrations and interaction with visitors The programme will be held in collaboration with the University of Rijeka – Cultural Complexity Lab.
7 pm – 8 pm – Round table discussion ”From talking with artificial intelligence to transhumanism“, Zoom conference, moderator: Damir Medved
8 pm – further socialising at the reception with DJ Antun Ožbolt

ABOUT THE BORDERING NEIGHBOURHOOD PROGRAMME
The bordering neighbourhood is a place for working and creating, a platform for sharing and meeting, forming and gathering a community of developers, creative individuals, innovators and entrepreneurs, where innovations are promoted, collaborations are exchanged and ideas for the future are envisioned.

With the project of developing the social, cultural and innovation centre HUB Drenova, the Bez Granica association is attempting to exploit the potentials of the settlement that might become the driving force behind the development of various content aimed at spending quality free time.

The Drenova cultural HUB development project encompasses various programmes and initiatives devised in cooperation with the Dren association (primarily within the context of positioning and promoting the cornel as an indigenous superplant and on the premises of the Local Heritage Museum of Drenova, the permanent museum exhibition on the borders of the Rijeka City Museum.

HUB Drenova is a lab for researching new technologies and indigenous ecosystems, which would, following the conceptual stage, become an interactive tech-based space that preserves and showcases heritage, while doubling as a little local FabLab, coworking space and a place where one can spend time, share ideas and experiment.

The presented ideas are clustered according to possible development scenarios and will ultimately result in the creation of a new space for a community that is expanding, and not just towards the Drenova neighbourhood and the city of Rijeka, but which is also leaving room for potential multifaceted European collaborations.

ABOUT THE EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD
Mons, Belgium – Mundaneum is the starting point for the idea of gathering the entire knowledge of humanity, which was initiated in the early 20th century (Otlet, La Fontain). It was a venue for debates, where peace, civil society and democracy, as a constant dialogue between history and perspective, were advocated. Each of the European partner’s exhibitions is guided by themed activities, including conferences and colloquiums, as well as pedagogical and educational activities.

The European Capital of Culture 2015 project was an opportunity to put Mons, a French-speaking city with a population of just under 100,000, on the map of Europe as a centre of creativity, culture and a new form of sustainable development, which would no longer depend on traditional industries.

Located in an extremely prosperous Belgian region and boasting a budget that exceeded many of the other European Capitals of Culture, Mons justified its investment with the following statistics:

  • Almost 2.2 million visitors and 587,000 tickets sold
  • A 470% and 2500% increase in organised tourist visits and guided city tours, respectively!
  • 390 scheduled events with 6700 participating artists, 1200 of which were from the Hainaut region
  • 000 Twitter mentions exceeding 127 million users

Such a positive experience proved to the local government that culture can drive economic development. In the words of Elio Di Rupo, Mayor of Mons and the former Belgian Prime Minister: “Today, culture has expanded its range of activities. It permeates the entire society and creates many new jobs”. A budget of 5.5 million € was allocated to the Mons 2025 Foundation for investing in the cultural economy in the forthcoming years.

In 2019 and 2020, the European partners and the Drenova neighbourhood collaborated on the exhibition A Shape of Things to Come – Meeting Mundaneum and the story of Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine – which took place on 14 November 2019, and the exhibition Damnatio Memoriae, which was held on 28 June 2020 and addressed the issue of erasing collective consciousness and reinterpreting historic events.

In 2020, the collaboration concluded with the exhibition Limitless Women, which tackles the topics and issues of inequality that the present society forces upon women in professional and private surroundings.