"We wanted to create an image as a little Hollywood for the Pa..."

add new project | My Workspace location Disused slaughter house (Mattatoio) city Roma country Italy year 2003 . . . . . . . . . . type of use cultural authors Penny Herscovitch Penny.herscovitch@yale.edu initial cost Repair of building operating cost Squatted :  €0  . . . . . . . . . . submitted by tashy endres submitted on 2003-03-19 . . . . . . . . . . web links www.stalkerlab.it description loromit2@virgilio.it description www.cliostraat.com/ description grupoa12@lol.it description Stalker – Ararat, Campo Boario, Roma, Italia Centre of art and Curdish culture time frame: Start Date Stalker came together as a loose group of architecture students on the early 1990s Began occupation of Campo Boario in 1999 continuing initiators: Stalker in cooperation with Kurdish immigrant community, artists, architects and students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Since 1999, Ararat, a squatted building on the site of Campo Boario, an abandoned slaughterhouse complex in Rome, has served as a cultural center for Kurdish immigrants and the workspace of Stalker Lab. Stalker, a radical architectural and urban research collective that grew out of the Italian student movements of the early 1990s, collaborated with the transient Kurdish immigrant community and local artists and students to repair the building and to organize events at Campo Boario, including Kurdish festivals, a planning workshop and design competition for the site and other art exhibitions and performances. Contact/ Information http://www.stalkerlab.it Lorenzo Romito  39 06 3973 6033  loromit2@virgilio.it HISTORY Stalker, an interdisciplinary collective involving architects, landscape architects, artists and others, named after the Tarkowsky film, was formed in the early 1990s when radical Italian student movements were at their height. Precidents include the radical collective research groups Archigram, Superstudio, Archizoom and Ufo in 1960s, experimental architects of 1960s, including Cedric Price and Situationist theories. The collective focuses its projects on interstitial urban spaces, migrations of non-European cultures, urban social mobility and living patterns, observation, mapping, site-specific interventions and new media. For their first installation, in 1993, Stalker responded to the proposed demolition of an old factory, which was being used as a theatre for alternative productions, with the construction of a one kilometer long path along the river Tiber, bounded by hundreds of doors and windows from the area’s demolished buildings, and sculptures by 60 artists. In 1995, Stalker embarked on a 4 day, 3 night tour around Rome’s unmapped disused urban spaces, so-called “actual territories”, and documented this derive-as-architectural-act with with drawings, plans and photos. In 1999, in conjunction with the Biennial of Young Mediterannean Artists held nearby, Stalker temporarily transformed Piazza Boario, formerly a slaughterhouse complex,  into Piazza Kurdistan, a site for dialogue about Kurdish diaspora in Roma. Workshop participants, including architecture students and Kurdish immigrant groups, began to repair an abandoned building on the site for use as Ararat, a community center for Kurdish immigrants and the Stalker office. Stalker continues to squat on the site, along with immigrant communites, and collaborate with the community to improve the dilapidated building and organize on-site arts and cultural events. DETAILED DESCRIPTION a)LOCATION, SITE AND BUILDING The Ararat Kurdish sociocultural center and Stalker workspace are located in an abandoned two-story building on a disused slaughter house complex, the Mattatoio, near the center of Campo Boario, a vast empty area that serves as regular meeting place for Roma’s immigrant population. b) USERS AND USE The Stalker collective, a group of young Italian urban architects and researchers outside universities and traditional studios, shares the building with Kurdish immigrant families and the area with “nomads”, semi-homeless groups of transitory immigrants. The building and surrounding space serves as a work-base and center for shows, performances, Kurdishish socio-cultural events, festivals and workshops. Some highlights include a 1999 dinner party with visiting artist Asako Iwama from Tokyo, and a two-week long workshop and design competition, sponsored by the prestigious French Academy and overseen by prominent Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas, to discuss plans for the future of the site. c) EFFECT ON NEIGHBOURHOOD  AND OVERALL CITY While Stalker works outside the law, they have been protected by their reputation among established arts intitutions and universities, and have used this reputation to support and legitimize the illegal immigrant community squatting on state land, in opposition to the local authority’s plan. Web links http://www.stalkerlab.it SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Stalker attraverso i territori attuali / à travers les territoires actuels – text by Guy Tortosa, ed. Jean Michel Place – Paris : in visu/in situ. 2000. 60 pp. to order: www.jmplace.com Stalker/Ararat – text by Stalker and Peter Lang - Editrice Librerie Dedalo Roma - 86 pagg. – request via e-mail: stalkerlab@infinito.it THEORY 7 SPIRIT OF PROJECT “Abandonment of these places is the most potent form of a cure for that which has developed outside human will and plan.” Leaving the “actual territories” alone to be overtaken by nature and appropriated by people on the margins of society is a valid and in fact productive use of space. The value of empty spaces (voids inside cities, spaces on the edges of cities, marginalized social spaces) lies in their programatic inspecificity, potential for people to take possession of the space and generate their own new, diverse uses. SIMILSR PROJECTS IN ITALY Cliostraat  -  http://www.cliostraat.com/ Cliostraat, a collective project, formed in Torino, Italy in 1991 with the idea of group-work on the urban territory, took possession of a set of street-facing rooms near multiethnic Piazza PortaPalazzo in Torino for their workbase. A12  -  grupoa12@lol.it A12, a group who begun their architectural research, design and experiments together in 1993, is based in “lo Stazone”, a large room on the piano mobile of a derelict palazzo in Genoa’s run down, multi-cultural center. Centro sociali  -  http://www.ecn.org/collegamenti/ Centro sociali are a movement of radical social and cultural centers located in former urban factories across Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . legal: Illegally squatted, but legitimized by institutional and media support reader comments Add a comment

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