Vorwärts, 06.02.2004

The Roma of Rome
by Dario Azzellini

The roadblock has a tradition in Italy: Until Wednesday a Berlin-based "Kiosk for Useful Knowledge" stood in the main train station in Rome.

At first glance, the "kiosk," created by Berlin curators Hannah Hurtzig and Anselm Franke, seems like a sales stand in the entry hall of the main station in Rome. Most people hurry past, loaded down with bags and suitcases. But small groups continually gather around the screen set up there. Headphones are put on. People listen to various interviews that were carried out in the last few weeks by the Berliners and the Roman architectural collective Stalker in 15 Roma camps in the Italian capital.
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Around 40,000 Roma live in at least 13 caps in Rome and a further 30 in the surrounding area. Only 3,500 of them have legal status, the city authorities recognize that many more. The most inhumane conditions are prevalent in the communally administered camps. Electrical power is available almost only in the container housing designated as "show" camps.

Located under highway bridges or on unused industrial grounds, the camps sink into the mud. The hygiene conditions are more than alarming. Walls of steel and concrete surround and cut through the camps. Police officers at the entrances control who comes in. Visitors are not allowed access.
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There is still much to do to remember the Samudaripen, the mass murder of the Roma by the Nazis. The kiosk, arising as a "mobile research unit, cinema, and archive" in the context of the Ersatz City project of the Berlin Volksbühne, is meant to "establish a short-term black market for accounts out of the controlled security zones of our public life," according to the desires of the artists. It has certainly fulfilled this claim.