Antonella Perin, Susanna Perin, Alessandro Lanzetta

Sketches on Valle Borghesiana – The illegal master plan and everyday life

Video installation 28' and wall installation / 2013

Valle Borghesiana, an informal settlement in Rome, is in a phase of ‘normalisation’. This quarter was established in 1970 when a large estate was illegally divided into plots. The settlement structure reflects the pattern of parcelling by the large landowner. Ironically, the spreading settlement was based on an illegal ‘master plan’. The installation explores the diverse relations between power and politics and their connections. Here, the residents’ everyday life is caught between the conflicting poles of insecure property relations and the dream of an own home.

The settlement’s residents are aware of being actors in an unwritten narrative and involved in creating political processes.

As in all informal quarters, the accommodation, usually self-built, is born of necessity. Yet although it adapts flexibly to the temporary needs of the family, it also expresses an individual freedom in design.