As Italy’s rave culture faces crackdowns, a cyberpunk citadel fights to survive

Along the Marecchia River near Santarcangelo – a small Italian town of 20,000 inhabitants roughly 100km (62 miles) southeast of Bologna – one of the world’s most striking sculpture parks stands. Pairs of vintage decommissioned cars stand vertically on their tails, linked by a third laid across the top in the shape of the standing pillars of Stonehenge. Next to them sit post-apocalyptic cyborgs and animals fashioned from scrapped motorbike parts and rusted metal.

With wildflowers and trees sprouting up between the sculptures in an abandoned quarry, it’s a striking blend of nature colliding with human creativity, and the site of cyberpunk citadel Mutonia, which has been the home of art collective and commune Mutoid Waste Company for 35 years. Today, at least 20 artists live on the site, mostly the third generation of the original Mutoids, who travelled across Europe from the UK in the early ​’90s seeking free space to express and explore.

The Mutoid Waste Company’s Carhenge installation is one of Glastonbury Festival’s most beloved areas, having first been allotted a field in 1987, while in Italy, Mutonia has become a tourist attraction in its own right, and for most locals in the Romagna Appenines area, it is a cherished part of the Santarcangelo community and landscape. In the words of the Superintendency of Bologna, Mutonia ​“must really be considered a significant part of European culture, which has become part of the identity and history of Santarcangelo, first and foremost, but also of Italy”.

But in January of this year, the Mutoids were ordered by Italy’s federal Council of State to demolish all of its structures and face eviction from the land, following a complaint from a neighbouring citizen, which alleged that certain structures and buildings are illegal and have been created outside of urban planning regulations. It leaves the Mutoids facing an uncertain future, though if there’s a defining characteristic of the group, it is adaptability. One of their catchphrases is: ​“Mutate or die.”

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The Mutoid Waste Company was formed decades ago 1984, by artist Joe Rush and mechanic Robin Cooke, who met in London’s underground squatting scene. Joe had lived in the legendary west London squat Frestonia – which even declared itself an independent republic in the ​’70s – where he first began experimenting with creating sculptures out of waste materials.

It was in this scene where Nikki Rifiutile (her nickname was created by the combination of rifiuto, waste, and utile, useful), first met the Mutoids. A current resident of Mutonia, she is one of the handful of those who have lived there from the very beginning. She moved to London from Crieff, a tiny market town in Scotland, in the early ​’80s, living a typical life, until she decided to leave the materialistic mainstream behind.

“In the London days I had my own business,” Nikki says. ​“I was working in the music industry, and then I set up my own merchandising business. We had a telephone, a fax machine, an insurance company, and all these vehicles moving around. It was a great business, but I really discovered that business wasn’t what drove me. It didn’t suit me, so I decided to sell the business and change – I started squatting.”

Through radical action networks, and huge parties thrown in empty industrial buildings and homes, the scene was strong and well connected. ​“We were all taken in squatting warehouses, making them up, organising big parties,” she continues. ​“It was before techno, before all the rave culture came in – before everything. And it was really a great movement – London was buzzing, a lot going on, a lot of possibilities, loads of action.”

• Read next: The London squatters who resisted evictions in the ​‘70s

The crew was one of the era’s most important party organisers. Much of their art pieces were sculpted for parties, with fire-breathing sculptures that roamed parties, inspired by cyberpunk aesthetics of Mad Max, Philip K. Dick and James Ballard’s science fiction writing, but above all 2000 AD, a comic from the ​’70s. ​“2000 AD in particular struck a chord with our generation, because everyone read it, it had a very underground feeling and a post apocalyptic setting that had a huge influence on us,” a Mutoid says in Mutate or die, a 2020 book released in Italy.

Outside of west London, they were regulars on the free festival scene – notably the Stonehenge Free Festival, where tens of thousands of hippies, punks, travellers and other countercultural folk would gather, listen to live music and celebrate the summer solstice. But their life took a turn in the mid ​’80s, as British authorities and Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government sought to clamp down on New Age travellers, squatters and their lifestyles.

After the 1984 Stonehenge Free Festival, which saw estimates of up to 100,000 attendees, a High Court injunction banned it from taking place in 1985. The Mutoids were part of the miles-long Peace Convoy, which attempted to set up anyway, but ultimately ended up in the infamous Battle of the Beanfield. Wiltshire Police smashed windows of travellers’ vehicles, and people were reportedly violently truncheoned – including pregnant women. In 1986, the Public Order Act placed restrictions on travellers’ abilities to gather and roam. ​“By the end of the ​’80s everything became a lot harder,” Nikki explains. ​“And that was the time when the great exodus started.” 

The difficulties, and growing legal risks of occupying spaces and organising parties, convinced the Mutoids to leave the UK. ​“At the same time that the movement was leaving Britain”, Nikki says. ​“I was 24 – 25 years old and driving a truck – which I’m still sitting beside – it’s still my home from 1987 – 88. I made a decision at that point: I didn’t want to work within the system. Just get out of it. Now I do live outside the system, much more enjoyably.”

• Read next: The party starters fighting to revive Stonehenge’s Solstice Free Festival

With the help of contacts within their squatting networks and artists abroad, the Mutoids decided to move, bringing its enormous vehicles in tow. First, they went to Amsterdam, then Berlin, Paris and Barcelona, moving in a convoy of giant machines and sculptures. Shows were organised in each city, often in collaboration with clubs or venues, and it was in the Catalan capital when an employee of Santarcangelo Festival – one of the most important performing arts events in the Italian calendar – attended one of their shows and invited them to bring their fleet of vehicles and installations to Italy.

Their first appearance in 1990 saw them stage a theatrical ​‘invasion’ of Santarcangelo’s town centre before leading an all-night-long cyberpunk afterparty in the disused sand quarry that has now become their home. ​“The group asked if it was possible to remain on the land where the show is made,” Nikki explains. ​“And we’re still on it. It’s a very long story, it has been an amazing experience. It was never: ​‘Now we’ve got a base.’ It just became.”

Following editions of the festival saw the area become the site for its late-night afterparties, while for the rest of the year, it was a workshop, warehouse, rehearsal room, open-air museum, music venue, and home. ​“During the ​’90s, it was wild. We were all living together, working together, a serious crew making shows, making performances, as a solid unit”, says Nikki. ​“A lot of fun, good times – we were all in our 20s or 30s: you didn’t need money, you all lived together, nobody had any paperwork, we were just living outside the system.”

Santarcangelo became the perfect base: the abandoned quarry is a large space, in the middle of nature just outside the town centre, where mobile homes stop and the Mutoids work on new performances and sculptures. Over the years, the group created art for local nightclubs and events, organised fire shows, and took their work to festivals around the world – from Glastonbury and Burning Man to as far as Japan and Australia – while throwing their own local parties. They’ve continued to do so, most recently hosting the Mutoid Easter Experience in the nearby town of Riccione, which featured revered contemporary underground DJs including Dr. Rubinstein, Paquita Gordon and Giammarco Orsini.

“The more time went on, the more we still found it was possible to be here, doing things, and the more we became integrated. That’s the major point in our existence, and why we are still here. The importance of being integrated into this area. It was never a plan to move to Mutonia, create Mutonia, and stay here for the next 35 years.”

• Read next: Can cyberpunk ever reclaim its radicalism?

Soon, Mutoids were hosting art workshops in the area, as well as local institutions, while running other community projects. And as members began to have families, raising their kids and sending them to schools in Santarcangelo, they became part of the town’s fabric. ​“You know, we’re getting older, you start having kids, you start having different needs and work with different people”, Nikki continues. ​“My oldest daughter is 26 now, and the youngest is 24. They grew up all their life here and they had an amazing childhood. They grew up in this area, so obviously they’re part of it. But I’ve never obliged them to follow my footsteps. My oldest just graduated in Architecture, and now my youngest is living in London, studying law. It’s called rebellion.”

The group’s steadfast commitment to recycling waste, in contrast to the fast-paced, consumerist society that has spread since the ​’80s, has been a key characteristic since the beginning. ​“I just love inspiring people and getting people, especially kids, working with their hands, giving another life to objects, transforming that thing that you are going to throw away. I have no claims I can change the world, but I’ve found something that people really enjoy, it’s just getting people thinking in a slightly less consumeristic way.”

Mutonia received its first eviction order in 2013. During that period, a documentary was also filmed, Hometown Mutonia by the collective ZimmerFrei, which tells the story of life at the camp through the voices of the community of artists who live here. A support movement was immediately set in motion, and an online petition titled ​“Mutoid must stay” was launched, collecting more than 11,000 signatures. 

Now, in the face of eviction again, a new petition ​‘Forever Mutonia’ has been launched, which has already exceeded 8,000 signatures. ​“I had no idea how important this place was to so many people, what we created here,” says Nikki. ​“It was only then that I started to realise what we’ve got here, and the importance of it. We were keeping it going because we’ve got a great place to live, to maintain. But also, it’s important to say that it’s the place that supports us.”

The area where the Mutoids have lived since the early ​’90s has never been regulated. After the first eviction order, the municipality of Santarcangelo decided to modify the urban plan of the city and to transform that area into an art park, so as to be able to protect it. The legal structure seemed to work, at least until last January, when the Council of State (the final level of judgement) overturned the previous legislation, stating that Mutonia must be demolished. And it comes against a backdrop that echoes the Thatcherite England that the group had chosen to flee from in the first place. Since Italy’s right wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was elected in 2022, she has cracked down on party culture, signing the so-called ​‘decreto anti-rave’ into law, which can see organisers jailed for up to six years, fined €10,000, as well as have their phones tapped by police.

• Read next: New documentary revisits the radical history of UK free rave culture

“We must now first fulfil the sentence, this is mandatory,” Filippo Sacchetti, the mayor of Santarcangelo, tells Huck. But the municipality is trying to save the space. ​“Mutonia is a unique experience in Italy and in Europe. For us it is a piece of Santarcangelo, whose inhabitants are our fellow citizens in all respects. Then there is the cultural contribution, the creation of works of art with recycling: these are very important values for us, and for these reasons, we do not want to lose Mutonia, we want to safeguard the village.”

Other options have been explored by local authorities, including moving Mutonia to a new site, though ultimately, they acknowledge that there may be little they can do. ​“Now, with a pool of lawyers appointed by the municipality, we are trying to understand if in that area we can give another guise to that type of settlement,” the mayor says. ​“To find a solution to keep them there, if the possibility exists. If it is not possible, [we are] thinking of alternatives on how to relocate them to another public area. We are here to make them stay at all costs. However, we are not sure we can do it.”

And despite the impending threat, Nikki says that it’s brought the Mutoids and the people of Santarcangelo closer together than ever. ​“Our relationship in the community is incredible,” she says. ​“We’ve been here for long enough, and one of the main reasons why we are still here is because first we are welcomed with open arms, which could be quite unusual for a group like we were at that point when we arrived. We’ve just become so integrated. But it’s more than that: we are Santarcangelo, Santarcangelo is us. Mutonia of course is a separate entity but we’ve become such an important part of the town, people say this all the time. Slowly, whether it’s through workshops, schools, or in all the ways we have become connected, we’ve been appreciated. It’s amazing. And it’s humbling.”

As for the future, questions remain. But they know that they must ​‘mutate or die’. ​“We all want to stay,” Nikki continues. ​“We hopefully move forward and create a new space, stay as part of the group. I want to keep it going. We want to maintain what we got, if it’s possible. Tomorrow never comes, it’s today that’s important.”

Marco De Vidi is a freelance journalist. Follow him on Instagram.

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