The Slovenian Museum of Natural History and Cankarjev Dom have teamed up to mount an interactive exhibition that charts the changing nature of life on Earth and man's destructive impact on it.

Running from 13 December to 5 November 2023 under the title In the Vortex of Change, it is the first natural science exhibition ever to be presented at Ljubljana's largest arts and convention centre.

The exhibition allows the visitor to marvel at the mysteries of nature as well as to reflect on the mass extinction of species and what they can do to help reverse the trend.

It offers an up-close look at six types of natural environments in Slovenia; forests, mountains, rivers, the sea, standing inland waters, meadows and the subterranean world.

The visitor enters each of the natural environments from the central part of the display, which shows how humans have been changing the natural world, juxtaposing man-made change to change that is part of nature and its cycles.

The visitors exit the show by a corridor where they can answer some questions and their answers will show them whether in the future they will help preserve nature, the planet and life on it, or whether they will contribute to their destruction.

The show is accompanied by a monograph, Surprising Life (Presenetljivo Življenje), which provides even more details.

Tomi Trilar, the editor of the monograph, says that Slovenia is recognised as a biodiversity hotspot in Europe, being home to around 37,000 species of plants, fungi and animals.

Some species that have become rare in Europe or extinct in some places are still common here, which is why 355 sites, covering over 37% of the country's territory, are included in the Natura 2000 network of protected areas.

Many species are endemic, which means they are found only in Slovenia.