Bar Far Transforms Trastevere with Surreal Catacomb Installation
In Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood, artists Clementine Keith-Roach and Christopher Page have collaborated on Bar Far, a site-specific installation that blurs the boundaries between art, architecture and ritual.
Commissioned by non-profit art space Villa Lontana and curated by Vittoria Bonifati, the project reimagines the traditional bar as an immersive spatial experience grounded in the visual language of ancient and baroque Rome.
GALLERY
Housed within Villa Lontana’s exhibition space, recently renovated by Studio Strato, Bar Far unfolds as a sequence of cavernous, catacomb-like interiors. Plaster-clad arches define a series of narrow corridors, drawing visitors into a dimly lit environment that feels both intimate and theatrical. From the outset, the installation positions itself between opposites, evoking what Bonifati describes as a space that is at once church and tomb, prophecy and ruin, heaven and hell.
A glowing neon sign marks the entrance, leading into a dramatic hallway populated by Keith-Roach’s sculptural interventions. Plaster limbs emerge from walls and surfaces, including disembodied arms, legs and hands that reframe classical sculpture through an uncanny lens. In one moment, two sculpted palms clasp ecclesiastical-style candles, reinforcing the installation’s interplay between sacred symbolism and contemporary reinterpretation.
Function and sculpture merge throughout the space. Lifelike lower-body forms extend from the walls to support small tabletops, positioned near a pared-back plaster bar. Opposite, a collaborative focal point takes shape in a circular portal constructed from plaster and timber. At its centre sits an abstract, sunset-toned painting by Page, encircled by interlaced plaster arms adorned with chains and a single sculptural breast. The composition is both surreal and tactile, inviting close inspection.
Material experimentation underpins the installation’s atmospheric quality. Cement binder, stucco, silicon glue and scrim are layered to create surfaces that feel aged yet ambiguous in origin, reinforcing the project’s temporal tension between past and present.
The journey culminates in a back room defined by Page’s floor-to-ceiling trompe l’oeil mural. Rendered in deep reddish-orange hues, painted archways suggest portals to another dimension. The illusion shifts as visitors move, appearing convincingly deep from some angles before warping and dissolving into abstraction. As Bonifati notes, the effect is an illusory colonnade that draws the viewer into an ambiguous, otherworldly infinity.
Bar Far ultimately operates as a spatial conversation between art and architecture, history and imagination. Through its layered materiality and symbolic references, the installation transforms a familiar typology into a provocative environment that invites both reflection and intrigue.
Images by Jasper Fry via Dezeen
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In Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood, artists Clementine Keith-Roach and Christopher Page have collaborated on Bar Far, a site-specific installation ...