Abstract
In March 2008 the online advocacy group Venessia.com, whose stated project is ‘to protect the Venetian way of life’, installed a digital census counter in a shop window near the city’s famous Rialto Bridge. It indicated that the city’s resident population at that point in time was 60,720; by July of that year the figure had already decreased by 200 (Machan: 3). Compare this to the population of Venice at the end of the Second World War, when there were 100,000 more inhabitants. This alarming rate of leakage stands in inverse proportion to the continuous stream of temporary visitors to the city, estimated at 16.5 million annually. As such, the city conveys an impression of sinking. It is known to be doing so literally — some 23 centimeters in the last century — with the fabric and foundations of buildings gradually dissolving and the seasonal floods of the so-called acqua alta on the increase, whilst figuratively the sheer weight of tourists can be said to be forcing the city down and its citizens to ‘jump ship’ in a desperate bid to save their futures. The clock is ticking and, in the opinion of the activists, ‘It is time Venice woke up’ (3).
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© 2013 Nicolas Whybrow
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Whybrow, N. (2013). Losing Venice: Conversations in a Sinking City. In: Hopkins, D.J., Solga, K. (eds) Performance and the Global City. Performance Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137367853_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137367853_6
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