This year, the Delegation of the European Union is celebrating Europe Day throughout the entire month of May with a caravan exhibition featuring a unique CERN installation and a VR corner, visiting six cities across Serbia. The interactive exhibition, intended for all generations and open to the public, visited Kragujevac on Friday, May 23.
The creator of the CERN exhibition is the Center for the Promotion of Science, whose young scientists and associates guided visitors through the interactive content, sharing interesting facts, lesser-known details, and scientific information. The local partner hosting the exhibition at the Đura Jakšić Gallery is the Kragujevac Science Club.
The CERN display explores the origins of the universe, deals with matter and energy, showcases the workings of the world’s largest machine – the Large Hadron Collider – and explains the role of the Higgs boson. A significant part of the exhibition is dedicated to Serbian scientists and their contributions to major experiments. CERN scientists also developed the most widely used internet service, the World Wide Web (www), originally intended to facilitate information sharing with colleagues around the globe. That service later became an essential part of everyday life for people worldwide.
One of the visitors, physics teacher Nemanja Momčilović from the First Grammar School in Kragujevac, remarked that the exhibition is fascinating and that it can encourage students not only to pursue science but also to think critically.
“It’s especially interesting for primary school students – the exhibition is interactive and allows them to discover various intriguing facts and get inspired,” said Professor Momčilović.
The youngest visitors particularly enjoyed the virtual reality corner, developed in collaboration with a multi-award-winning VR/XR producer from Estonia. Visitors experienced virtual reality through a captivating blend of science, art, and storytelling. Themes of the VR films included deep space, prehistoric caves, volcanoes, particle physics, and children’s dreams. The exhibition featured two short CERN films, four European science films, and two animated children’s videos.
Associates from the Center for the Promotion of Science also held workshops for students, where they explained what the universe is made of and what remains invisible within it.
The Europe Day caravan with the “Innovation on the Move” exhibition will continue its journey across Serbia. By the end of May, it will visit Pančevo (May 26 at the Gallery of Contemporary Art), Niš (May 27–28 at the Science and Technology Park Niš), and Novi Pazar (May 29–30 at the Cultural Center of Novi Pazar).
