Francesca Pionati

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STILL RUNNING
HD video, 4’20’’ + Performance, 2024
This work was developed in Rome around the former paper mill located in via Salaria 971. 

After various changes of use, the complex was abandoned and subsequently occupied in 2008 by the Ungovernable Area group and the Bengali association Dhuumcatu, following long organized fights for housing rights. 18 months later the occupants were evicted.

In 2009 the Municipality of Rome started the demolition of Roma informal settlements around the city. An increasingly high number of displaced Roma families were brought to the former paper mill. By 2010, 322 guests inhabited the facility, including 80 minors. Starting in 2011, the center was managed by the cooperative House of Solidarity, later implicated in the Mafia Capitale trial. In 2013 all the Roma families were also evicted from the paper mill.



Giulia and Giulio, wife and son of the custodian of the building, have been inhabiting it for over 20 years as social housing recipients. 

Searching for traces of the ephemeral architectural interventions that were carried throughout the building to adapt it to and as a consequence of the arrival and departure of the different groups, as well as of the inadequacy of the State. Re-enacting conversations and found footage interviews collected by various news stations and activist organizations throughout the years, we investigated the space, developing a video piece and a performance. 

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