Arts & Entertainment

Rome neighborhoods turn into museum of urban art

By Cristina Cabrejas

Rome, Aug 26 (EFE).- Far from Rome’s world-famous monuments in the heart of the historic center, a different form of art is displayed in the peripheries of the Italian capital.

Unknown street artists have turned the city’s working class neighborhoods into an open-air museum, offering tourists a different experience of the eternal city.

The buildings of peripheral neighborhoods like Ostiense, Tor Marancia or Pigneto have turned into canvases for street artists who are sometimes commissioned by local councils.

The Street Art map includes several routes to visit the almost 330 artistic graffiti created over the years.

The street artists have taken to murals across some of the city’s more deprived areas to send messages on sustainability and against crime and the mafia.

Ostiense, a working class neighborhood in the south of Rome, was one of the first to use its graffiti to attract young people to the area. Since, entertainment venues have been popping up in the up and coming area.

The most famous graffiti in Ostiense is Italian artist Iena Cruz’s mural of a heron painted with Airlite, a special ecological paint that absorbs and destroys pollutants.

Tor Marancia has also transformed thanks to street artists who painted murals across residential buildings, turning the neighborhood into a tourist attraction.

Among the most famous murals in Tor Marancia is The Redeemed Child, a mural by French street artist Seth depicting a child on a colorful ladder representing a local boy who died in an accident while playing football.

The Pigneto neighborhood is known for its graffiti dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini, a controversial film director and novelist who was allegedly assassinated by the mafia in 1975.EFE

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