“Joy”: Murals and the Failure of Post-politics After the Morandi Bridge Collapse

Abstract

In 2018, the Morandi bridge collapsed, killing 43 people and displacing 600 from their homes in Genoa's postindustrial outskirts. Almost entirely isolated after the collapse, Certosa bore much of the brunt of the disaster. This is when Genoa's conservative administration launched On the Wall, a street art project meant to assuage residents’ anger; the theme chosen for the murals was “joy.” Drawing on ethnographic research conducted between 2019 and 2022, this project explores the post-political underpinnings of Certosa's “joyous” street art.

These murals, I suggest, are an attempt by the city administration to enact a type of aesthetic governance that seeks to conceal institutional neglect while foreclosing political antagonism; this happens through a distribution of the sensible (Ranciѐre 2010, 24-25) that is meant to promote consensus by shaping the residents’ perception of their neighborhood. However, I also contend that, instead of fostering a post-political allegiance between Genoa's conservative administration and Certosa's residents, the street art project failed to sway a community organized around the awareness of its own disenfranchisement. Since Certosa's ruination continued unabated, beleaguered residents intensified their demands for the safety and the basic services that are still denied to their neighborhood.