How did you get to San Basilio?
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Given that public transportation is insufficient, the best option to get there is by driving a car for about 25 minutes if we use the city center as a reference and I assure you that once you get there you’ll find huge art pieces all over the place, in other words a great outdoors museum and completely free!
URBAN
ART
SANBA Project Roma
Why San Basilio neighbourhood?
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San Basilio was chosen because it has been looking to promote the social rebuilding of the area, managing to create an appropriation link between the residents and their environment. This neighborhood, as I mentioned before, is very far from the Roman historic district and its famous attractions, it is a poor suburb and with an anonymous-looking design aesthetic, made of impersonal and repetitive living quarters. Although the whole neighborhood has changed in a positive way since the murals are present, becoming particularly interesting from an artistic angle, giving it an identity of its own and placing it on the cultural map of Rome.
Andrea, beyond its notorious district and famous monuments, what can Rome show us artistically?
There is a lot to see and a good example of it is the interesting SANBA project, this contemporary work of art is located at the degraded and outlying San Basilio neighborhood, very close to the Rebibia Prison. The project is very interesting from a socio-artistic point of view given that local residents have actively participated with the aid of world-renowned artists from Street Art.
This sounds wonderful, you were previously mentioning which famous artists have worked on this project…
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Right, all of them muralists of international acclaim from different nationalities including locals, among them is Hitnes, who made six great murals that surround a green area and you can admire other murals from Liqen, Agostino Lacurci and famous BLU as well.
SALONES
OVALES Y SUS NYMPHEAS
The mural done by BLU that represents San Basilio created controversy among the Roman Police, what happened?
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BLU is an artist who has always fought for the right to housing and the right for people to possess their own home and here he represents San Basilio stopping the riot police who arrived to evict the illegal occupiers with a steady hand and cutting a big padlock with the other. It is a clear message that BLU sends in order to defend the homeless.
It is important to note that there is flag in the mural that reads, “The house is property of whoever dwells in it” while the saint casts a spell that transforms police officers into grazing pigs and sheep and this is precisely what infuriated the police so much that the mural was intervened by the Unit of Moral Decorum of Rome few days after being finished, however, the community of San Basilio didn’t stop expressing themselves and have written over the mural, “censored” with a humongous paintbrush and in bright red.