Art as citizenship

A celebration of the arts and young people who wanted to convey their ideas and emotions: the art contest “Give Voice to Your Neighbourhood, a prize for talent!”, organised as part of the Peer Sharing project [see news item Give voice to your neighbourhood], came to an end on 30 May at the Villa Lazzaroni theatre.

The winners were the students of the Ponte Linari Music School (first place), the team from the Teatrocittà acting school (second place) and the performers from the Four Dance school (third place).

Designed to give a voice to boys and girls aged between 12 and 18 living in the VII Municipio, the initiative involved both newly formed groups and existing teams, in collaboration with associations and youth centres in the neighbourhood. Between November 2024 and April 2025, the young people prepared a performance that recounts their point of view on the reality of the neighbourhood, but they also took up the invitation to cultivate art in all its forms and expressions, finding original solutions. Anita Curatola, director of Forumsad (lead partner), describes the day and the initiative as follows: 'The Peer Sharing project aims to bring together and strengthen the members of the educational community, which, in addition to associations, institutions and schools, finds its beating heart in young people. It is precisely our young people who are often conspicuously absent from the story of the neighbourhood. With this first edition of the contest, we wanted to make them protagonists and give them the opportunity to communicate through art forms to which they do not always have access. Thanks go to the associations and schools that accepted the challenge, to the VII Town Hall for its partnership, and to Decathlon Appio for its support."

Patrizia Schiavo, who runs the training and research centre Teatrocittà Aps, talks about the project presented by “her” young people, Matteo Amendola, Bianca Lo Presti, Viola Pecorari, Beatrice Polselli, Andrea Puglia, Beatrice Tricarico, Martina Zaghini and Gaia Zullo. "We present “Voci di Libertà” (Voices of Freedom), a choral journey of girls and boys who live in different realities, from Torre Spaccata to Tor Vergata, from Tor Pignattara to Quarto Miglio, to Morena. They share dreams, fears and the desire for a more just future. Five territories that are different in terms of history, social composition, problems and resources, but united by the need to reflect on their own reality. The voices are those of thoughts, desires, experiences lived and those only heard. They recount the beauty and wounds of their neighbourhoods: the squares where they grow up together but also the invisible barriers made of prejudice, bullying and racism. Exclusion, the need to be heard, the desire to be free, to be oneself, without labels or discrimination. Voices that tell of the present and dream of a tomorrow in which freedom, equality and equity are not just ideals but everyday practices, not exceptions but the norm. The performance is an exercise in active citizenship, an act of resistance, an act of love. For the city, for the neighbourhoods, for those who, despite everything, try every day to imagine a better world. http://www.teatrocitta.org/

The young students of Simone Spada, from the Four Dance association, presented two dance performances, one in hip hop style and one in modern style. “With 'Steet Roots”, the hip hop piece, we take a journey through asphalt, streets and walls full of colour, i.e. the murals of Quadraro, where every step tells a story of friendship, every gesture speaks of support, every movement is an act of redevelopment. This is not just a choreography. It is our way of saying: we are here, and we are together. The modern dance performance, entitled Amati, is choreographed by Ylenia Tocco and represents an invitation, a powerful whisper that runs through the body: the young dancers bring to the stage a message of care, rebirth and solidarity, accompanied by images shot in the Casa delle Donne “Lucha y Siesta”, a symbolic place of welcome and resistance in the heart of Rome's VII Municipality. The video clip was written, directed and edited by Beatrice Spada with footage by Valeria Pieroni, students at the Roberto Rosellini Film and TV Institute. It was created in a redeveloped space that speaks of dignity and possibility, a collective gesture that says “you are not alone”, embracing those who have never known love and proclaiming the right of everyone to be seen, heard and loved. https://www.cmaroma.com/

Individual and team work for middle and high school students at the Ponte Linari Music School. President Tiziana Aquilani explains: "With the song “La nostra realtà” (Our Reality), Maya Cocchi talks about her neighbourhood, also through images. Alessandra Morselli, on the other hand, uses the medium of letters to recount her experience as a student who attends a school in the city centre but comes from an area beyond the ring road. Alessandra's text inspired a song entitled “Roma dentro Roma fuori” (Rome inside Rome outside), composed by maestro Franco di Luca, in which she invites her schoolmates in the city centre to visit her neighbourhood on the outskirts for a shared experience. The song is sung by the choir of the youngest children, accompanied by images of Calatrava's sails and the Officine Marconi, symbols of the neighbourhood located after the last stop on the underground line."

Paola Oliva, vice-president of ANPI, Nido di Vespe section, describes the experience she had with two girls from the Piaget Diaz high school in Via Taranto, led by teacher Romolo Tozzi De Marco. 'The two classmates, Floriana Cola and Desiree Marini, chose to tackle the theme of women in the Resistance through fashion. They did so with a spirit of great innovation, showing how they were made and the research that went into them. The final proposal is a video tour of the Quadraro neighbourhood, which addresses historical issues and contemporary reflections, such as the meaning of Article 37 of the Constitution, but also the lives of women in those years. It starts in Via Diana (where one of the Piaget Diaz school buildings is located), then passes by a stumbling stone and a commemorative plaque commemorating the events of 8 September in Quadraro Vecchio. It then continues towards the “murales delle vespe” (mural of the wasps), frescoed for the 70th anniversary of the Quadraro roundup, with seven wasps representing the nest, and continues with the Monumento del Monte del Grano (Monument of the Mount of Wheat) from the 2000s. The video ends with the students talking, giving free rein to their creativity through improvisation. It was very interesting to interact with the young people involved in the project. Together with ANPI, we are committed to preserving memory and defending democracy and the Constitution. With this video, we have done so by talking to young people about our common past, in a contemporary style, because history is something that is constantly evolving and never stops. We ended the video with a phrase: “history in our heads and memory in our hearts”.

The testimony of Kari Rummukainen, president and artistic director of the Isola dell'Arte music association: 'We gladly accepted the invitation to participate in this contest which, thanks to the collaboration and union between many associations in the educational community of the VII Municipality, sought to guide young people to best express their emotions in relation to the neighbourhood in which they live. We worked with them on several fronts: mainly, we tried to bring out the creative side in each of them, trying to enhance their character and musical tastes and creating something new but together. This work is not only valuable in the musical sphere, but also helps them to relate to society because it supports the free expression of themselves. Many of those who took part in the project wanted to talk about an act of vandalism that took place in the neighbourhood, an arson attack on a school, using the medium of art. The title of the song is “Farfalle” (Butterflies), a concept that refers to evolution and growth, stages of life that fully reflect adolescence.

Peer Sharing is the project selected by Con i bambini to combat child educational poverty. The aim of the project, drawing on the diverse skills of the partnership, is to combat educational poverty in the area by strengthening the educational community of Rome's VII Municipality through “peer sharing” between the various actors active in the area.