San Lorenzo. Tales from the Hood
From 23 to 25 September 2026, Porte Rosse, located at Via dei Sabelli 8 in Rome’s San Lorenzo neighbourhood, will host San Lorenzo. Tales from the Hood, an exhibition created by RUFA international Visual Arts students as part of the Digital Cultures course.
Curated by lecturer Tommaso Fagioli, the exhibition was conceived as an educational project bringing together research, contemporary artistic practice and the local area, transforming the stories and memories of San Lorenzo into artworks.
Sixteen works telling the story of San Lorenzo
The exhibition features 16 works spanning painting, sculpture, installation, mosaic, neon, LED-based works, video and sound. Each project originates from a true story connected to San Lorenzo, reinterpreted by the students through their own artistic language and practice.
The brief assigned during the course invited each student to freely select a tale from the neighbourhood: a historical episode, a forgotten figure or a local myth, drawn from Sara Fabrizi’s monograph La storia di San Lorenzo (Typimedia, 2021). The aim was to develop a deep connection with the area — its history, places and the people who have shaped it — and to transform the microhistory of the neighbourhood into an artwork.
The stories explored span very different periods and imaginaries: from the 1943 bombing of San Lorenzo to the Pliocene sea lying beneath its streets, from Maria Montessori’s first Casa dei Bambini to the Arditi del Popolo.
San Lorenzo. Tales from the Hood was conceived not simply as the final outcome of the Digital Cultures course, but as a genuine educational tool.
Producing an exhibition open to the public gives students the opportunity to engage directly with some of the key dynamics of contemporary artistic practice: developing a work in relation to a real exhibition space, translating an idea into an installation, working collaboratively, and dealing with deadlines, production constraints and an audience.
The project has a particular value within the RUFA learning experience: it takes teaching beyond the classroom and into the local area, allowing Visual Arts students to engage with the concrete complexity of planning, producing and staging an exhibition.
The artists featured in the exhibition
These works are joined by KILL UR-FASCISM, an artwork by curator and lecturer Tommaso Fagioli, bringing the exhibition to a total of 16 works.
The exhibition will also be accompanied by a dedicated booklet-catalogue, featuring texts curated by Tommaso Fagioli and a visual identity conceived by RUFA student Evgeniia Bychkova.
The exhibition is hosted by Porte Rosse, a former neighbourhood tavern that has been brought back to life as a cultural space by Erika Braun, Eleonora Ghezzi and Diletta De Leonardis.
San Lorenzo. Tales from the Hood
23–25 September 2026
Opening: 23 September, 6 PM
Porte Rosse
Via dei Sabelli 8, San Lorenzo – Rome