In Carrara, there is an alleyway filled with street art works that have lifted it from degradation

Adopt an alley in the historic center of Carrara to raise it from decay and neglect, a problem that plagues many of our cities, including, for many years, the center of the city of marble, without convincing solutions being found for the latter. Thus, an association, the Bacchanal Circle, started the collective project Adopt an Alley, with the intention of actively responding to the problem.

Started in 2018 and carried out independently thanks to the help of members and residents, the project, genuine, born from below thanks to the commitment of artists and citizens, has taken particular care of Via San Piero, the small street, about 250 meters long, which is among the most characteristic alleys in the center of Carrara, and a place dear to the city’s anarchists, since this is the location of the Cooperativa Tipolitografica (later to become the anarchist printing house “Il Seme,” still active today), in which the most important voices of Italian anarchism are still printed, including sheets, pamphlets, books, and newspapers (of particular note is Umanità Nova, one of the historical periodicals of the anarchist movement).

Via San Piero has been at the center of a real renaissance, becoming an attractive hub for many artists from the city and beyond, who have chosen to voluntarily donate their art to the project by creating more than 30 murals and street art works. With much perseverance and passion, the idea of redeveloping from below the street parallel to the renowned Animosi Theater, a nineteenth-century jewel, has become an amazing reality, as well as, perhaps unexpectedly, an increasingly destination for curious people and tourists who, going off the canonical routes suggested by guidebooks, choose to enjoy the Artistic Walk on Via San Piero to the final finish line of the historic Ponticello di Groppoli, thus also indulging in a form of “slow tourism” among the many floral and cultural details the alley offers.

In this sense, even the majestic Memory Frescoes (a collective street art work created in 2002 in the vicinity of the still active Il Seme anarchist print shop) have returned to shine among the painted jars of the alley, as well as the former public washhouse recently transformed into a “diffuse” flower bed. In short, a truly interesting, participatory project based on a sense of community that has given new face to a historic street. On the Facebook and Instagram pages of the Bacchanali Circle, you can find photos and videos that testify to the gradual and creative restyling of the street, and you can also follow the work day by day (many walls are still to be filled!). Below is a selection of the works found in the street.

In Carrara, there is an alleyway filled with street art works that have lifted it from degradation

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