Primož Bizjan from Horjul

Proposer: Petra Buh

Primož Bizjan treads his own unique educational path. He says of himself: "If something didn't interest me, then I certainly wouldn't have anything to do with it." Owing to his unconventionality, to which he has always remained faithful, he abandoned his studies and went off for a time to farm in a forgotten area of Idrija. He devoted himself entirely to nature, becoming deeply intimate with it in an extensive experiential learning project, and then enriching others with his original approach to observation and understanding. Today he keeps himself going with his hobbies, something that represents a unique innovation in selecting and creating an individual lifestyle. He fulfils his eruptive creative search in continually taking on new learning challenges. In this way he demolishes established notions, applying just curiosity and his own effort to arrive at knowledge that others also recognise as exceptional. After finishing secondary school he chose an informal route to acquiring knowledge, for he is outstandingly self-taught, and involved in a wide range of activities. In 1999 he founded a forest camper group at Horjul Primary School, and this later grew into an entire movement for maintaining young people's contact with nature. He is active in the Society for Observing and Studying Birds, and owing to his specialist knowledge he collaborates in the study of less well known and less traceable species such as woodpeckers and owls. He is the conceptual leader of the municipal project Charter of Old Trees, with which he attempts prior to any felling, through his own civil initiative and the self-control of owners, to protect as many hundred year-old freely growing trees as possible. As a forest camp leader with the Horjul Tourist Society he is in charge of the project for the Sveti Urh-Prosca Forest Interpretive Trail; he is a co-author of the brochure that describes the trail. He is a protector of mountain nature and every year he works as a guide in Slovenia's wilderness areas, as he knows where you can photograph a capercaillie, a viper or bear. He trained himself in the skill of making and firing a longbow; he is a devoted singer and founder of an octet and a vocal group, and he also runs his own independent workshop for learning and familiarisation with singing, vocal technique and ear training. He has published three anthologies of poetry, and he won the grand prize from the Droga company for his short prose piece in the Coffee Cup competition. He is also a self-taught artist, and two years ago in Horjul he put together his own fine art exhibition with depictions of animals. He has also painted an apiary, but currently he prefers portrait work. He has taught himself to play the piano, and meanwhile through regular correspondence with Czech musicians he has also learned Czech.