RIF, the Museum of the Suburbs, is a cooperative venture launched by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Crescita Culturale, Municipio Roma VI (Tor Bella Monaca) and the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo. It is curated by Giorgio de Finis.
In the wake of a cycle of encounters held both in the Department's offices and at the Macro (during the RIF | Museo delle Periferie event), we have developed the idea of setting up a Museum of the Suburbs in Tor Bella Monaca, an international museum and study centre designed to address the phenomenon of the suburb, the banlieue, in the broader context of an analysis of the city on a worldwide scale. The project provides for the construction of a library, a video library, a permanent collection, residences for artists and research projects, exhibitions, publications, keynote addresses and encounters.
In the course of 2020 we will be fine-tuning the project's network of national and international institutional partners, we will be identifying a scholarly advisory board and we will be defining its goals and the schedule for 2021/22. In the meantime, two or three new murals will be produced in Block R8 to complete the street art project already under way in Largo Ferruccio Menganoni and originally scheduled for 2019 but as yet unimplemented. The Melissa Bassi school will also be hosting a programme of open monthly encounters, while the Teatro di Tor Bella Monaca will be hosting a project presentation event and a cycle of keynote addresses. The building housing the Museum does not yet exist but it is definitely going to be built following an agreement between the Municipality and private-sector entrepreneurs. The businessmen in question have pledged to complete one of the three buildings under construction in order to donate it to the Municipality, which will use it to house the Museum (it is a compensatory public work and thus the private-sector entrepreneurs are legally bound to build it). There exists a series of both enclosed and open-air areas that can be used for the Museum's activities in the meantime.