Hulls and fishlines, catches and markets

WALKING (THE) TRAJECTORIES: VENICE AS A MODEL FOR THE FUTURE? is a series of free itinerant conversations, taking intimate groups of “talking walkers” through the Venetian lagoon. Organized by the Ocean Fellowship Program of TBA21–Academy, these nomadic tours are scheduled to take place throughout June and July 2020. They are inspired by the trajectories charted by Territorial Agency from their upcoming exhibition Oceans in Transformation (27 Aug–29 Nov 2020) at Ocean Space in Venice.

WALKING (THE) TRAJECTORIES: VENICE AS A MODEL FOR THE FUTURE? brings together a diverse array of local guests and experts, and operate as a physical, mobile extension of the interdisciplinary conversations held in digital space by the Ocean Fellows around a series of Tavolas (tables). All walking talks (1 hour 30 ca.) depart from the steps of Ocean Space, housed in the former church of San Lorenzo. The walking talks invite all participants to engage in free-flowing conversations along the waterways, concluding at unexpected points along the water’s edge, chosen by each invited guest, as they coincide with a critical point of observation.

Would it really be possible to think of Venice without its boats, without the fish out on the tables, and without its markets? How do we imagine the 1950s and 1960s, during which fishing techniques underwent multiple revolutions - something now taken for granted - such as the introduction of motor boats and the use of nylon? If the lagoon and the sea are systems in constant equilibrium with each other, what has caused the imbalance and the drastic changes in the life of these ecosystems?

From the Church of San Lorenzo to the alleyways of Castello, Luigi Divari continues the conversation started online with Nowtilus - the podcast made by Ocean Space and TBA21-Academy, edited by Enrico Bettinello and Alice Ongaro Sartori - tracing a route on a touring talk as part of the "Walking (the) trajectories: Venice as a model for the future?" series of events. He leads us through the evolution of Venice and its lagoon from the post-war period up to today. He offers his observations from the point of view of a sailor and a fisherman, struggling with local wildlife such as eels and gobies, but also non-native species like barracudas and blue crabs. He therefore invites us to reflect on how we got from the so-called "fishing boom" to the current situation, in which the market has been emptied of its shoppers, and the upper Adriatic has been emptied of its fish.

Luigi Divari is an artist, fisherman, seafarer and writer. For decades, he has been studying the nature of the Venetian Lagoon and its traditions, with an approach deriving from the experience of the people who experience it every day, both through seafaring and fishing, as well as through the practice of drawing and painting watercolors. He has published several illustrated and non-illustrated books, and exhibited in various places around Italy and abroad. An exhibition of his watercolors is currently underway at the Candiani Cultural Center in Mestre.

Illustration by Luigi Divari