There are occasions when a reality is not liked and is judged dangerous and harmful.
But the analysis that is then carried out turns out to be weak, fragile and sometimes incomplete or even impotent.
And this even if it can partly be considered truthful and correct.
I am writing about the controversy over the (apparently) closed number that was chosen for Venice and which is being applied these days for the first time.
Why do I say this?
Because I read the article by my friend Claudio Madricardo which generated different reactions in me.
Nice to read, often politically correct, intellectually capable of arousing solidarity but, in my opinion, fragile in analysis and above all lacking any credible and unifying perspective.
I add for the sake of fairness that it is certainly not “his” demerit because it perfectly captures the limits of the debate that has opened on this issue between the political forces, the economic categories and the institutions of the lagoon city.
I will therefore limit myself to giving some explanations of what I have written and indicating some work objectives that seem reasonable to me.
I will act by keywords.
The first is “waterfall”.
There is in fact a precise and defined “water” in which Venetian life takes place.
And it is not an ideological or value-based water.
You don’t oppose mass tourism and its explicit damage just by highlighting two things: on the one hand the problems for the inhabitants still resident and on the other the risks of violation of democratic rights in visiting a World Heritage Site.
The reason is simple.
On the one hand, a non-limited component of the inhabitants themselves have specific economic interests in tourism either because they manage places or because they rent spaces or because they conduct economic activities.
And therefore there is an explicit contradiction.
Another component, however, often sees these problems as marginal because they are either very well endowed with financial means that allow them to overcome difficulties or are involved in particular working conditions: public dependency and pension.
Therefore it has interests in status and services but not in the essentials of life.
We add that the age theme is then dominant.
And that often the disappearance of the protagonists does not correspond to the presence of combative heirs except in the income.
All this to say, therefore, that those who live in the island city of Venice are weak in the face of the choices they make.
He rightly protests and is immensely annoyed at looking at reality but he stops there.
The risk of violating the democratic right to visit the city or rather the path that leads from the living city to the museum city is absolutely evident.
It is a destiny that has been felt upon Venice’s head for more than fifty years and which has found a strong acceleration in recent years.
Ask yourself, however, whether this prospect, unacceptable to me, has had any blockages up until now.
No. And this probably has an obvious reason.
A cultural, ideal and intellectual battle was waged which however was not generated by a fundamental economic necessity.
So we fight with words but we know that the facts are different and do not change.
Do you want an example?
Think of those in various public and private institutions who declare themselves against further tourist expansion of the city and then in fact grant, create, build, manage, use, design… structures or activities with a tourist function.
Result: Venice is a real battle in which denunciation and criticism risk being “dead souls” if they do not build credible hegemony and real economic prospects.
In a word one “alternative”.
And this is the second keyword that interests me.
It is evidently a difficult project because otherwise it would have already been fully undertaken while it has only been so at times and I certainly do not pretend to be exhaustive but I want to try to provide some stimuli.
I will also use “symbol words” here to define it.
I believe that “false obstacles” must be overcome, that it is necessary to have “multiple destinies” and that a new one must be built on this “social pact”.
There are two false obstacles: the exasperation of the fight against tourism as the only chance on the one hand and on the other the separation between Venice and the Mainland.
I have already written about the obvious limits that a fight against tourism “sic and simpliciter” would have.
And so I won’t insist further.
But the second point is also relevant.
And not only because we are a single Municipality and therefore the “deus ex machina” that governs, whoever he is, has a good hand in “divide and conquer”.
The question is different.
There Land it has transformed and is no longer what we once knew.
It no longer has “its” autonomous destiny.
The mainland is now Venice more than ever.
For business services, for the presence of tourist hospitality facilities, for the organization of transport, for the directionality of the activities, for the origin and residence of the workforce and for many other reasons.
The separation of Mestre from Venice is an unwanted battle by the inhabitants of the mainland themselves, as the referendum data shows.
That of Venice from Mestre is a battle already lost by law, illusory because it is dominated by reasons unrelated to separation (the hope of self-government with men or women of one’s own expression) and above all it is useless because it chooses a non-existent shortcut compared to the problems which instead are very another dimension.
So we need to focus on the future.
What I call i “multiple destinies”.
The translation of this slogan lies in four interpretations.
City of studies and research, city of cultural production, city of glass and city of logistics and production.
City of studies and research means a project of university expansion and a different relationship between university and city.
Expansion seen in the number of students and teachers, in study opportunities, in international ties, in teaching, in qualified work permanence in Venice after graduation and so on.
Working in perspective to introduce a new presence of living forces in the city which is increasingly scarce today.
The city of research is built by expanding the functions and presence of the bodies that – like the CNR – operate in this sense and by recalling the concept of the city of sustainability not as a bureaucratic or conference place (as it seems to be today) but as a headquarters (Venice ) concrete European-wide production of studies and research.
Here the connection with the second destiny occurs, that of cultural production.
The cultural foundations, which are springing up like mushrooms, must be transformed from mere opportunities for image and entertainment to productive places in science and culture.
And there are already some examples of great quality.
The Biennale itself, in addition to guaranteeing the circulation of shows and activities of extraordinary international level, can and must pay attention to its own production capacity by playing it in Venice and on the Mainland.
The reference center from this perspective is the Historical Archive of Contemporary Art, an extraordinary “value” that must become anything but a pure museum.
But culture is specialized transport, installations, multimedia, insurance, valorisation and promotion, study, new techniques, new forms of representation and so on.
And if Venice is unattainable as an exhibition venue, the Mainland can be as the mainland of the project construction process and manufacturing specialists.
But cultural production means something else.
Very linked to industry and, at the same time, to cultural deposits.
I think about the different forms and different uses of design.
With two perspectives in front.
At the same time be the land necessary for the company for its substance and its image, looking to Veneto as the first interlocution.
And on the other hand, having the guarantee of a modern and lively use of the cultural sense of Venice.
Glass is another area of real work.
And it is different from what our imagination led us to think when looking at the small centers of craftsmanship that we come across in the Venetian streets.
Glass is an artistic form and material, with the intersection between the world of master glassmakers and top-level contemporary artists and designers.
Glass is also a fundamental part of the decorative arts: mosaic, ceramic, wood and many other materials.
Let’s not forget that the Biennial of Decorative Arts existed in the not too distant past.
And finally the mainland, land of logistics and production, organization and specialties.
Which only with Venice finds opportunities despite being larger and closer to the world.
A land that in Marghera does not want to forget advanced non-tourist production opportunities and which rightly does not want to be only subordinate to tourism but a protagonist in other production processes.
Here are some ideas, some perspectives highlighted.
And others are missing, especially for the Mainland, which are known.
Everything to compare and see and certainly to understand and modify.
But I hope the meaning I wanted to convey is clear.
Only one alternative can generate a social pact.
Because to build a credible alternative that adds and does not cancel, qualifies and does not eliminate, creates and does not invent, a new social pact is needed.
Otherwise the irony remains of a Mayor who is more intelligent and cunning than his detractors think.
Who with the number s-closed tells a story, brings a bit of money, smiles, hugs the critics and thinks “I did it”.
The destinies of Venice was last modified: April 26th, 2024 by MAURIZIO CECCONI
The destinies of Venice
last edit: 2024-04-26T18:02:51+02:00
from MAURIZIO CECCONI
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