What will Venice be in fifty years? The destiny of the most fragile and beautiful city in the world must now be built through a vision that goes beyond extemporaneous measures. After those to Salvatore Russo and Marco Vidal, today the third of the interviews started by our newspaper.
Venice, laboratory city. City of “crossbreeding”. But also the background of millions of photographs, an excellent backdrop to the self-representation of overtourism. Chiara Valerio, writer, essayist, editor, also enters into the debate about the future of Venice and is responsible for Italian fiction at the Marsilio publishing house. For years you have divided your time between Rome and Venice.
Valerio, the access fee has been in force for a few days, which is intended to regulate flows and obtain resources also from hit-and-run tourists. What do you think?
«That I don’t understand its usefulness and that it confirms my idea that the last natural resource available on the planet are human beings and therefore we must earn on ourselves. Storage and logistics. And in fact the first ones to rate are people who cannot afford a hotel or temporary accommodation but who go back and forth. Among other things, do we remember article 16 of the Italian Constitution? I also hope that on the site they change the way in which you have to indicate your date of birth, that is, by clicking on a calendar that starts from 2024. I have friends who were born in 1947 and it took them ten minutes. The sense of waste is the measure of small and large usurpations.”
Venice lives on tourism but seems to be dying of tourism. How do you read the paradox?
«I think it’s a paradox until we are told that there is tourism that doesn’t kill. And to intercept that tourism you don’t need turnstiles or access fees. We need to remove temporary accommodation to transform it into permanent accommodation.”
The Pope, visiting Venice, emphasized the need to safeguard the beautiful and fragile city. Agree?
«How can you not agree with Pope Francis? However, I hope and trust that Venice is “antifragile”, that is, it shows the ability to change and improve itself when subjected to stress, disorder and various stresses.”
In your opinion, what are the issues that need to be addressed to guarantee a future for Venice?
«Residentiality. Let’s solve the residentiality and then move on to the rest. Also because residentiality then means rethinking the services for the people who live there. And the rethinking of citizen services, of bridges, of common spaces, of benches, of canals to be dredged, is an exercise in political imagination.”
Venice is a city founded on culture and recognized for its cultural heritage. Do you think that today it is a city that protects its heritage? And invest in it for your future?
«Of course he invests for the future, we all can’t do anything else. The point is what is the future in which we are investing. However, I deal with publishing, publishing is my political practice and I think that, as a person who lives in Venice, we must invest in residentiality – forgive me if I insist – but residentiality means more male and female students. Cities also live because someone lives in them and then talks about them in more detail and with greater definition than an Instagram photo. With the steps, for example, with the glasses we drank, with the people we passed.”
What is the cultural identity of Venice?
«The crossbreeding. Commerce that conveys culture and culture that conveys commerce. The drive for innovation. The point is how we want Venice to be seen, what representation we want to give of it. The publishing industry that was born in Venice is this – a squint, Teresa Cremisi often says, who has a lot to do with Venice – one eye on commerce and one on the market.”
Do you think that Venice, a university city, a city of art, a city of great cultural institutions such as the Biennale, is today up to the standards of excellence that have chosen it?
“Yes. Indeed, more than that, I think it is an integral part of it. I think that part of this excellence is Venice itself.”
What do you think of the theme chosen by curator Pedrosa, Foreigners Everywhere, for this year’s Biennial? Do you believe it is a theme that Venice should also adopt with a view to an increasingly multicultural future?
«Foreigners everywhere, considering Pedrosa’s speech at the press conference, is a warning, mantra and aspiration. The aspiration to think without borders, without barriers, without customs, outside the commercial attempt to manage the living, without distinctions other than those between what is alive and must be nourished, in the strict and broad sense, and what is dead and it can only be remembered. Foreigners everywhere means life everywhere.”
What is your first memory of Venice?
«A black and white photo of my mother smiling in a white cowl-neck sweater in front of the Zitelle Youth Hostel. It was 1972, 1974, I don’t know. When I see the photo of my mother sitting on the foundation it’s 1984. Before that, the song of the same name by Guccini.”
Do you remember the first photo taken in Venice?
«In 1998, the first time I came to Venice for the Venice Film Festival – since then I haven’t missed a single year – I slept on the Lista di Spagna, in a room with a bathroom on the floor, but I was in the company of a woman who I liked it a lot. It’s the photo of the hotel corridor, with her walking towards the bathroom.”
How did you see Venice before having the experience of spending more time there and living there for long periods?
«I’ve lived in Venice half the year for seven years and I’m happy there. When the train hits the bridge over the water, I think about going home. Before I saw it as economically inaccessible, above all I thought I was getting lost. Like all. Now I don’t get lost, I pay the bills, I go to the cinema and I tell everyone that the spritz we drink here is something else. And then I call everyone blackberries and I also say Mi morti Ta morti.
What do you like about this city and what can’t you stand or don’t like?
«I like everything about Venice. However, I would like, due to the old insidious habit of those who have studied probability for years, that when political, economic and cultural decisions are made, a weighted average was taken, and in listening to all those who must be listened to, those who lives and works in Venice.”
What is your relationship with this city today?
«I walk a lot. I live there half the year. I work there. I go to the seaside at the Lido by vaporetto. I go to Pellestrina and Malamocco. It comforts me not to be financially pressured when taking public transport. There are even Hollywood stars on the vaporetto. I think that Venice mixes everything and in mixing everything there is a lot of life.” (3 – Continue)
