Metropoliz Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere

Metropoliz Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere – an abandoned Roman salami factory has found new life as an art space home to 200 squatters. 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. What became a collaboration between de Finis and the factory’s 200 squatters has led to murals, paintings, and installations made by more than 300 artists from around the world. Many of the people who live at museum are poor and unemployed, living in the factory illegally. Italy has been criticized in the past for its treatment of migrants and Roma people.