The Pomurje Region at your fingertips

We encourage visitors to further explore Pomurje through agritourism and by visiting thermal spa resorts, discovering wine-growing hills and the Pannonian beauty of our cities and towns, as well as to taste our wines and cuisine. Expano is thus a promoter of tourism in Pomurje. Visitors from far and wide can experience the region and help us develop new contents, so that Pomurje may today and tomorrow offer inspiring, unforgettable and unique experiences.

As a regional promotion centre, Expano co-creates, connects and makes known the best that Pomurje has to offer, which visitors can explore with the use of modern technologies, and gives voice to the varied arts and artists from this region.

They are inspired by the endless Pannonian landscapes, rolling hills, plentiful vineyards, fields and forests, the misty River Mura and the many paths among the fields.

In addition to the permanent interactive exhibition, where visitors can learn about visual art, music and literature, Expano also hosts pop-up exhibitions. As the world and times are changing, so do our exhibitions: They are temporary, and set in a space that provides creative challenges and freedom to curators in their designs and artistic expressions.

Celebrating the centenary of the unification of Prekmurje with the rest of the nation, the awareness of one’s identity is now even more prominent, taking on a much more significant role in the thoughts and actions of all of us who are closely connected with this region.

The River Mura, which once divided and separated the Prekmurje people from the rest of Slovenia, is now a cohesive force, joining us all in one Pomurje Region. This very environment, its natural gifts and historic facts, created a space for various artistic expressions and awakened in its people the artistic soul that we all carry hidden inside.

On my grandfather’s footsteps

Pomurje, or more exactly the town of Ljutomer, was the site of the first Slovenian film, celebrated today with the Grossman Fantastic Film and Wine Festival, which is named after the first Slovenian film-maker Karol Grossman. This rich art heritage is also included in the interactive experience park, where films and renowned local painters are presented in the Panoart glej section. The Panoart poslušaj section of Expano is a great ceramic pot, presenting musical artists of various genres, as well as literature. The latter is closely connected with the photographic exhibition of Mankica Kranjec, granddaughter of Miško Kranjec. Miško Kranjec was a writer from Prekmurje who left a significant mark on Slovenian literature, and a three-time recipient of the Prešeren Prize. He wrote more than fifty novels and stories describing his homeland.

On my grandfather’s footsteps is the title of the photographic exhibition by Mankica Kranjec, who has woven invisible threads of connection with her grandfather through photography, capturing ephemeral images and securing them a place in our memory.

The exhibition, starting its journey in Expano, is a priceless witness to a time about to slip away, but which is nevertheless a part of us and our soul – the soul of the Pannonian people. It reveals images from the past and gives witness to the transient nature of a particular time and space.

The captured images of long lost buildings, which Miško Kranjec described in his novels, keep alive a vision of a time slowly eroded today by globalisation and show the variety and authenticity of the region.

Mankica Kranjec says that by searching for her grandfather’s footsteps she also discovered her own roots and was granted entry into the life of Miško Kranjec in a way she hadn’t known before: "Through photographic images and my lens I try to present the motifs of the beautiful Prekmurje flatlands, especially as they are today, where my grandfather spent his childhood in the swampland, hunting and fishing. I photographed old farmhouses where he used to meet his friends and visited villages where he rode a bike once a week to buy fresh rye bread in the local bakery. I bear witness to a certain time, which no longer exists in its original form, but still remains in the memories of the people who knew the world my grandfather was writing about."

A superb photographer and journalist, who says that she is most interested in uncovering new ideas and new worlds, unveiling hidden and forgotten images, has surpassed the boundaries of the local with her photographic projects and given it a different, cosmopolitan outlook, enabling all visitors, for wherever they come from, to experience a specific time through her images. All photographs on exhibit, which were created by studying Miško Kranjec’s literary works, bear citations from his novels as well as the memories and stories of his son, Mankica’s father.

The exhibition is thus a photographic documentary of the literature of a certain time and space; it is our memory and our connection with the past, intended for the future.

In the Expano regional promotion centre, the permanent interactive exhibition at the experience park is, therefore, complemented with exciting temporary exhibitions by artists, who live and work in the local area, providing visitors with new perspectives of comprehending and experiencing Pomurje.