Over-tourism e Grandi Navi nella laguna di Venezia

[Machine translation] Socio-environmental conflicts originate from different ways of perceiving, seeing/looking and, therefore, representing the territory, especially when it is the subject of projects that strongly modify it, undermining the relationships between social groups and the environment. In this sense, emblematic is the case of Venice, a historic city and a UNESCO site, for years afflicted by dilemmas and threats related to tourist monoculture and at the center of a heated debate related to the transit of cruise ships. In the last two years, also due to the total shutdown induced by Covid-19, the issue has remained hotter than ever and in summer 2021 the Government issued a new measure to regulate traffic and the possibility of docking, as many have been asking for years, outside the lagoon. According to various studies, in fact, their passage has a heavy impact on the balance between human and environmental systems, causing damage to this fragile ecosystem (waves, air and water pollution, etc.) and exacerbating the already high tourist pressure, without even bringing great benefits to the local economy., Undoubtedly, the presence of cruise ships has induced a profound change, both in the perception and evaluation of this particular habitat between land and sea, and in the way of looking at and representing the Venetian landscape. On the one hand, for example, we have representations of large ships that have become real weapons to denounce the disfigurement of the lagoon and the image of the city. Among all, the photographs by Gianni Berengo Gardin, which portray them as invasive and aberrant elements, so disproportionate as to dominate the historic city and “visually pollute it.” On the other hand, the advertisements of the shipping companies represent those same ships as graceful and perfectly inserted in the context of the lagoon, while the videos of the cruise passengers show us a view that, from the height of the ships, dominates the city and the lagoon and at the same time remains distant there., The present contribution, therefore, aims to investigate and map these conflicting landscapes, and then analyze the way in which the representation of the relationship between Venice and its lagoon with large ships has, from time to time, been exalted or stigmatized by the various subjects involved in the conflict. Specifically, the representations produced, over the last two decades, by environmental associations, social movements and residents, as well as by information channels, shipping companies and cruise passengers, will be examined.