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The first mural
The first mural of the Poetry Unbound project marks both a cultural milestone and a bold artistic experiment in Genoa’s historic center. Created by Italian artist Federico Russo in collaboration with poet Martin Solotruk, the work transforms the façade of a 15th-century building — home to the International Poetry Residency Parole spalancate — into a dialogue between poetry, cartography, and the sea.
Russo, who lives between Rome and Genoa, is known for his innovative approach of painting live over reworked antique prints. For this commission, he began with ancient maps of Genoa and its surroundings, layering in monumental whales. These creatures recall the city’s maritime heritage, its openness to the horizon, and the living reality of whale migrations still passing through the Ligurian Sea today. Solotruk’s verses, written during his residency in the same building in June, weave a literary counterpart to the visual composition.
The choice of location is unprecedented: the wall belongs to one of Genoa’s oldest architectural complexes, protected by the Fine Arts authority. The site — Piazza Santa Maria in Passione — has witnessed over two millennia of transformation: from its beginnings as the Castrum hill in the 1st millennium BC, to a medieval stronghold of the Embriaci family, to a convent for the Canonichesse Lateranensi. It later became a school, barracks, warehouse, theatre, printworks, dance hall, and gym, before decades of abandonment and partial restoration in 2004.
Genoa’s historic center is unlike those in many other Italian cities: it is not a polished tourist quarter, but a dense, working-class district layered with cultural encounters, migration, and social complexity. Since the devastation of the Second World War, the area has resisted gentrification, retaining its raw mix of historical depth and creative energy — but also visible neglect.
By placing its first mural here, Poetry Unbound and Genoa’s Circolo dei Viaggiatori nel Tempo (CVT) aim to set a precedent: using poetry and contemporary street art to breathe new life into historically significant yet overlooked spaces. The collaboration with the Superintendence of Fine Arts, the integration of visual and literary languages, and the connection between ancient maps and present-day ecology together form a living example of how cultural projects can reframe urban space.
This intervention is not only an artwork — it is a model for reimagining cities through the meeting of heritage and contemporary creativity.
