Neighbors Day at Center Rog: Over 2,000 Visitors and More Than 60 Activities

Neighbors Day, held every year on the first Saturday in June, is a community program of Center Rog aimed at connecting the neighborhood, city residents, and visitors from near and far. The event is an opportunity for those who do not usually visit Center Rog to get to know the building, its production labs, creators, and programs—as well as the organizations, associations, venues, and initiatives that shape this part of the city.

The next Neighbors Day will take place on Saturday, June 5, 2027.

A Community That Co-Creates the Program

Milica Kravić, Community Manager at Center Rog: “Neighbors Day best demonstrates what it means for Center Rog to be a community space. The program is not created just for visitors, but together with them—with mentors, users, neighbors, associations, local providers, volunteers, and performers. This year, more than 40 organizations, associations, and initiatives, along with around 150 individuals, contributed their time, knowledge, ideas, and energy. It is at this moment that it becomes clearest that a neighborhood is not something abstract, but a tangible network of people who know how to come together.”

Neighbors Day in Numbers

This year’s Neighbors Day also reflected this in numbers: the program included more than 15 workshops and sports and creative stations, 10 presentations and tastings, 6 music and dance performances, and over 40 participating organizations, associations, and initiatives. We distributed 350 ice creams and served 80 liters of homemade kombucha. More than 100 brooches, pendants, mosaics, and clay products were made in workshops. A total of 70 wooden cars raced down the Nerdy Derby track, and 20 prizes were awarded in the raffle among 200 submitted tickets.

From Labs to the Park

The program began with morning exercise, a “Dog Vibe” gathering, a toy exchange, creative and educational workshops, and presentations by neighborhood organizations. Throughout the day, visitors could try screen printing, planting and exchanging plants, assembling a dome and playing chess, throwing clay on a potter’s wheel, working with clay, knitting, lace-making, stamping pet tags, making brooches, hobby horsing, table tennis, mini football, and the Nerdy Derby wooden car race. The program also included a bike repair station and tastings of dishes from around the world.

An important part of the program was once again prepared by Rog’s production labs, which introduced visitors to the materials, tools, techniques, and work processes that are part of everyday life at Center Rog. For the first time, the park also featured a new shaded structure—a colorful wooden space for sitting, playing, and socializing—created in the week before the event as part of the Makers in Residency 2026 program.

Visitors could join guided tours of the labs, open studios, and Center Rog, see the children’s performance Dragon River – Wizard Blues at the Rog Library, and visit the exhibition UNICUM 2026: Limitless Use in the Main Hall, on display until September 5.

Community Picnic and Community Kitchen

At 1 p.m., a community picnic followed, based on the principle “everyone brings something, we eat together.” Visitors brought homemade dishes to the Cooking Lab, where mentors prepared them for shared serving in the park. The picnic also included a thank-you to participants of the Community Kitchen pilot project at Center Rog and a presentation of the participatory budget initiative Participate and Co-Create, which allows members to propose and vote on improvements for the building and its surroundings.

Music, Dance, and Afternoon Gathering

The afternoon program featured a culinary, language, and children’s corner by the Kotnikova Asylum Centre, a raffle, a Chinese calligraphy workshop, music and dance performances, a jam session, and a concert by the band Larao.

With this year’s edition, Neighbors Day at Center Rog further establishes itself as an annual celebration of collaboration, creativity, and vibrant public space. It has shown that Center Rog is a place where different generations, knowledge, communities, and ways of creating come together.

Photo: Tine Lisjak