Metropoliz Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere

An abandoned salami factory in the outskirts of Rome has found a new life as both a collective art space and a shelter for refugees.

In 2009, several migrant and Roma families cleaned the empty complex and turned the factory’s auxiliary buildings into homes. They’d already begun painting murals on the walls when Curator Giorgio de Finis found the place in 2011 and started organizing events and performances there.