The Mural on Scalo San Lorenzo: Reading the Politics of the Neighborhood

 

Of San Lorenzo's many murals, none captures the community's history of in-your-face, leftist politics--at one time the product of the neighborhood's working class, now of a newer population of university students--than the street-level monster on Scalo San Lorenzo. The street can be dark and foreboding, having been victimized by a 1960-era elevated highway running down its center, but it was central to the area's development and character. To the south and east lie a maze of railroad tracks that at one time were crucial to the area's commercial development; Scalo, a word that defies precise definition, has some relationship to loading and unloading--it's likely related to the English word, "scale." 

About fifty feet long and accomplished mostly in grey tones, the mural is a complex political statement of the ideas that currently motivate San Lorenzo's residents, generally, and particularly those in the social space and organization that occupies the space at Scalo San Lorenzo, #33, behind the mural and was, apparently, responsible for it: COMMUNIA. Created a few years ago, COMMUNIA (see below the photo of the bus in the mural) is a feminist movement, mutual assistance organization, and a laboratory for experimenting with modes of production, and culture, that lie outside the marketplace. 

As a feminist movement, it works against workplace harassment (le molestie) and other injustices; the driver of the #19 bus (today, replacing the tram on via dei Reti while work is done on the tracks far away in Parioli, it is central to the area's transportation network) is a woman with fist raised (looking a bit like the Statue of Liberty), but it's noteworthy that the mural does not attack patriarchy or men in general. The section of the mural at right foregrounds the role of women and the community's need for green space and public services. I have not been able to figure out who L. Blissett was or is. 

[Nota bene: an anonymous reader explained that L. Blissett was Luther Blissett, a "multiple use name" shared by artists and activists in Europe and elsewhere since 1994. That is, there is no individual artist named Luther Blissett. He (named after a soccer player) is a community "myth" and a community project. For more--much more--see the entry "Luther Blissett" in Wikipedia, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Blissett_(pseudonym).]

Among the issues the mural raises are gentrification and the proliferation of Airbnbs that have raised rents and driven out residents, especially older ones ("poor people leave quietly," says the mural).

Increasingly, the area is unable to support traditional business; there is no classic Roman deli, no dedicated bakery (although there is one attached to a bar), only two orto-fruttas (fruits and vegetables) and one 72-year-old butcher with a very limited array of meats.

The source of the problem, the mural tells us, is money ("Rich Uncle" Pennybags, the figure from the game Monopoly) and developers, represented here by grotesque machinery, part metal/part skeletal animal. "Fight power not people," is the phrase on the front of the bus (photo showing bus, above). 

San Lorenzo values equality. OMNIA SUNT COMMUNIA, a well-known phrase from the Latin, translates as "all things are to be held in common." And it values inclusivity: "No Borders"/"A San Lorenzo Nessuno E' Un Straniero" [at San Lorenzo, no one is a stranger]. 

The mural also includes at least two aspects of the community's physical presence: the Sopra-Elevata (the elevated highway that runs down Scalo San Lorenzo) and the neighborhood's graffiti, represented here in the signature of GECO (high up on the mural) and the painter Hogre.

Bill 

 

Tracking down a muralist in Rome - Carlos Atoche plays with decay and regeneration.

It's not often one finds murales or wall art, right outside one's door - even better, viewed from one's apartment.  But here we are in Pigneto (a now rather hip, but still working-class neighborhood of Rome) looking from our balcony at a fine work using images of ancient Roman statues, and placing them under water. I also like the fish floating just above the "Carrozzeria - auto e moto" sign (car and scooter repair, down the block).

We're one of those balconies on the left. Our view of the murales
is really only of the left side, as seen in the top photo.

Always eager to explore our immediate surroundings, we tracked down the painter of the mural, which is on one of the very old buildings that are now dwarfed by housing blocks. We thought we had seen this theme of Roman statues, under water, around Rome and, indeed, we had.

A small plaque at right indicates that Atoche did this mural in 2016 as part of a project by a group of tour guides to raise
money for earthquake victims.

We saw a plaque naming Carlos Atoche as the author of work above, in Torpignattara, as we were giving ourselves a tour of murales - as they are called in Italian, using the Spanish word for "murals" - in that area.

"The Fall of the Gods," a 40 meter-long mural in Ostiense, which Atoche did in 2015 with Mexican muralist Luis Alberto Alvarez.

Explaining another of Atoche's works, this one in Ostiense (which we've seen many times, including when we lived there 2 years ago), StreetArtRoma - a superb App (the link is to the Web site, which is not as easy to maneuver as the app) - says "The fall of Gods, between busts of mythological giants and historical figures, is a symbolic representation of the decay of power; the glories of the past consumed by the passing of time. What remains is the unstoppable force of the universe, the energy of the oceans, the drive of life, the animals, the sky, the plants and the tides."  That's a bit high-falutin' as we might say, but not bad.

No doubt about the artist here. "atoche" appears at the top of this painting in
Portonaccio.

We like that Atoche tends to put his work on older, even abandoned buildings, perhaps emphasizing the theme of decay. At the same time, he's decorating the neighborhood - or is he gentrifying it? And is that good or bad? (I vote for "good.")

Not identified, but clearly Atoche.

StreetArtRoma also notes that Atoche is Roman by adoption, born in Lima in 1984 of an Argentinian mother and Peruvian father.















Atoche works out of this studio in Pigneto. 

Below, several other Atoche works, all in Pigneto.  Horses are among his favorite subjects. 

We're glad he's decided to enliven our environs. Here's his Web site. 
This is RST's 792nd post.  Use the search engine at far upper left to explore Rome and environs. 

Dianne