An Interactive Museum for Children and Families

Whether it is a scorching summer day or a rainy afternoon, Explora, the Children’s Museum of Rome, just a short walk from Villa Borghese and Piazza del Popolo, is an ideal destination for families looking for an educational and fun experience. Managed by a predominantly female non-profit cooperative, the museum is housed in a large exhibition pavilion created from a former ATAC depot, now transformed into a safe and stimulating space for children, parents and educators.

For twenty-five years, Explora has been welcoming schools and families to a 2,000-square-metre space designed to entertain and inform. Its interactive installations, dedicated to science, technology, environmental sustainability and gender equality, offer an engaging journey that encourages curiosity, creativity and a spirit of discovery.

Encouraging awareness and equality

The museum is designed around the learning rhythms and needs of children, following international educational models that allow young visitors to observe, touch and discover independently.

The ground floor is dedicated to major sensory and emotional explorations: the Market, where children learn how to shop sustainably; the H2Ohh! installation, with water games that explore science, physics and the properties of this precious element; the digital installation A Sea of Creativity, designed to spark imagination; the Circular Economy Team Game; the vegetable garden; and the Explora18 area, made up of five installations on colour, architecture and history. There is also Mission Me, the area dedicated to the human body, and Quanti Mesi, focused on the reproduction of viviparous, oviparous and ovoviviparous animals.

INSPIRATION
Best things to do with children in Rome

On the first floor, visitors will find the section dedicated to PARI, a play-based journey made up of 11 interactive installations exploring equal opportunities, as well as Economiamo, where children can earn and save, donate and invest, making economics fun and accessible.

Piccole Esplorazioni is a small area designed for children aged 0 to 3, with games suited to this specific age group and its developmental needs.

Much more than a museum

Explora is also a place for meeting and sharing. In addition to the exhibition pavilion, it includes a free and inclusive green area, a bookshop with a store, a café, a restaurant and parking. The equipped garden, designed for free play and social interaction, creates a valuable connection between the museum and the city.

The bookshop, accessible from the main hall, offers a carefully selected range of books and educational games and regularly hosts free events, including animated readings, workshops and presentations, creating further opportunities for learning and discovery.

Accessibility and inclusion

Explora is not only an educational space, but an environment designed to be fully accessible and inclusive. From the outdoor area, equipped with anti-trauma flooring, inclusive games, sensory panels, tactile maps and reserved parking spaces, to the indoor areas, every detail is designed to welcome all visitors. The museum features child-friendly restrooms, a renovated information desk and a ticket office with an accessible-height counter, designed for people with disabilities and families.

The visit is supported by innovative tools such as maps in Braille and Augmentative and Alternative Communication, videos in Italian Sign Language and accessible content that allows visitors to fully enjoy more than 60 installations.

Inclusivity also extends to the museum’s official website, which is fully accessible. Completing the experience is a trained and attentive staff, ready to welcome every visitor with sensitivity and professionalism.

Information

Please note that visits to Explora’s exhibition pavilion have limited capacity and are organised in 1-hour-and-45-minute time slots. Visits are available from Tuesday to Sunday, including holidays, at 10am, 12pm, 3pm and 5pm. It is recommended to purchase tickets online in advance through the museum’s website.

Tickets cost €11 for adults and children aged 3 and over, €7 for children under 36 months, while admission is free for children under 12 months.

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A Home for Photography at the Former Mattatoio

After undergoing a major renovation, the spaces of the Mattatoio are now open to the public with three exhibitions featuring artists of global appeal and interest: Irving Penn, Silvia Camporesi and Real bodies, imagined bodies, a project uniting three artists from Japan, Iran and France.

The Center of Photography is the first public institution in Rome completely dedicated to the visual arts and it is part of a wider project aiming at making the Mattatoio a brand new City of the Arts.

The opening ceremony on January 29th coincided with the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the twinning between Rome and Paris and it was widely attended by local authorities and journalists eager to witness the transformation of the industrial site of the Mattatoio into an art center. «The Photography Center is the cornerstone of a major cultural and urban regeneration project, aimed at transforming Rome’s former slaughterhouse complex into one of Europe’s largest centers dedicated to contemporary arts and culture,» said Manuela Veronelli, president of the Fondazione Mattatoio.

Irving Penn. Photographs 1939-2007

The highlight exhibition features more than one hundred photographs by Irving Penn, coming from the Parisian Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP).

The American photographer of Jewish and Russian origins is widely recognized as one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth

century and this exhibition rightly celebrates his talent across different macro areas of his work. The photos are organized into six thematic sections: from the early works, travels across continents and communities, to the portraits of great artists and celebrities of his times, nudes, to the last sections with fashion and still life prints.

Each photo witnesses a different way of framing reality and the evolving photographic techniques, from gelatin silver to platinum printing until the arrival of pixel and inkjet print and colour prints. Regardless of the methods used, through his long career, Penn captured historical moments which remains iconic and timeless.

Silvia Camporesi. The Right Time and Place

The first floor of the gallery is dedicated to Silvia Camporesi, a philosophy-trained photographer born in 1973 who has dedicated much of her research to the Italian landscape.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by Peter Weir’s film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), a cult classic soaked in mystery and temporal suspension. Similarly, Camporesi’s works explores the concept of fracture encouraging a reflection on the tensions between reality and artifice, nature and culture, presence and absence, past and present.

Her photos span from La terza Venezia to Journey to Armenia, Atlas Italie, Almanacco Sentimentale, Mirabilia, and Omaggio al Mattatoio.

«Silvia Camporesi’s work perfectly represents that special and magical fusion between artistic expression and autobiographical need that photography manages to render in such a unique way,» commented curator Federica Muzzarelli.

Real bodies, imagined bodies. Identity, belonging, construction of meaning

Curated by Daria Scolamacchia, this contemporary group exhibition brings together artists from Japan, Iran, and France to examine pressing social issues including gender equality and the perception of the female body in the digital age.

Japanese artist Kensuke Koike, already familiar to the Roman public and the Mattatoio from a recent solo exhibition, presents women’s images slightly rearranged and edited such as Ikebana woman and Vertigo, to challenge the viewers’ perceptions. In Alix Marie’s work, Maman, an installation consisting of five large scale images of a mother’s breast, printed on silky fabric and arranged along a circular hollow metal structure, the experience evokes a sense of intimacy and separation.

Women are again the main focus in Nina Boukhrief’s stretched figures in Lycra and in the colorful photos by Forough Alaei. In her works, female Iranian fisherwomen, also called “daughters of the sea”, are portraited in their daily jobs in the open sea to highlight their courage, resilience and will to support their families.

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