8. Towards a critique of the tourism economy

Eighth and final appointment of the new cycle of itinerant conversations "Venice as a model for the future?".

With the title "The lagoon / has the moon / between its legs / playing ball" (after a poem by Etel Adnan, from her book From A to Z, Post-Apollo Press, 1982), this series intends to explore how humans and more than humans co-exist in Venice and its lagoon after dark, when the wave of daily visitors leaves the city, nocturnal birds start to sing, beacons are switched on some boats to catch mullet and cuttlefish, and the moon dictates the movement of tides.

We end the cycle of night walks together with Giacomo-Maria Salerno, author of "Per una critica dell’economia turistica" (Quodlibet, 2020), with a reflection on the human ecosystem that populates the city of Venice. At sunset, in fact, not only do the cries of the Cocài and the rumble of the daytime boats quieten, but so does the presence of visitors and tourists. Once again you can move around in the most congested areas, you can hear the sound of the lagoon between the canals, and life slows down and relaxes. In some areas, the night highlights the void left by the more than 100,000 Venetians who have left the city since the 1960s, making room for the age-old pilgrimage of over 30 million visitors a year. So let's walk in the night, together with Giacomo, reflecting on this movement, making Venice like a lung, or the cycle of the tides: filling up during the day, emptying out at night. What does this mean for the city? And what possibilities can emerge from an urgent and radical questioning of the monoculture of tourism.

Giacomo-Maria Salerno (Venice 1986) is a research fellow at the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering (DICEA), La Sapienza University of Rome. Author of Per una critica dell'economia turistica. Venice between museification and commodification (Quodlibet 2020), he is a member of OCIO - Civic Observatory on Housing and Residence and of the research group Short Term City - Digital platforms and spatial (in)justice [STCity].

Part of the cycle “Venice as a model for the future? - The lagoon / has the moon / between its legs / playing ball”.

"Venice as a model for the future” is a cycle of itinerant conversations, curated by Barbara Casavecchia and Pietro Consolandi and guided by activists, scientists, and guardians of this body of water and its inhabitants. This year's series, titled “The lagoon / has the moon / between its legs / playing ball” (again inspired by a poem by Etel Adnan), moves into the twilight and the silence of the night, exploring how humans and more than humans co-exist in Venice and its lagoon after dark.