Agenda Venezia

10th Fair on Cultural Goods and Activities -
«The Restaura»

Ten years to remember, Venice 1-3 December Passengers Terminal - Pavillion 107-108

To reach the aim of the ten years is not an easy goal in a country where cultural goods represent an undeniable resource at words, but in reality they are treated as a Cinderella in the already poor national budget, that is not in a good condition. The tenth Fair on Cultural Goods and Activities in Venice represents a moment of profitable confrontation between private and public, museal institutions and European organizations, all engaged in the safeguard, protection and improvement of the artistic and cultural heritage of the different geographic areas. A consolidated appointment that sees the confirmation of important collaborations, such as the one with the Ministry for Cultural Goods and Activities – that will be present at the fair with a big exhibition space, an important meeting and that will officially open the Fair in the person of the deputy-minister for Cultural Goods Danielle Gattegno Mazzonis – and the one with the Venice Province, that allowed to start a real dialogue between the many Italian provinces which together will create an union of work and exchange of the different models useful in the development of territory. There is also the international opening with the renowed presence of the Council of Europe and the VII edition of «Viaggiandum Est», Cultural Tourism Fair, a workshop dedicated to meetings between qualified tour operators, specializing in cultural tourism, and the representatives of firms and territorial offer systems.

Another confirmed and increased appointment is «Restaura» which after the success of the first edition comes up as a place of encounters linked to restoration and preservation, place of effectiveness and encounter with the world of work and training. The so-called cultural deposits have shown with time their potential to transform into economic shuttlecocks for entire areas, but their development cannot happen only by increasing tourism flows.

The knowledge of territory occurs through communication, that is bound to be together with artistic education. Venice represents one of the most controversial examples of how one of the most visited and known cities in the world can have a remarkable number of monuments still unknown to many people. The Fair on Cultural Goods and Activities has now gained a stability owed to an experience of ten years, and goes beyond the national borders to enlarge the size of a territory that needs to be recognized and united as to history, exceeding geographic limits to become a path of collective awareness, which implies methodical constitution also from the infrastructures’ point of view. The window of the fair represents only the point of an iceberg, where each reality tries to exploit at its best the scarce economic resources in order to communicate a given area. The danger is to mistake the Fair on Cultural Goods for a fair about tourism; while it is true the contrary. The real emergency is given from the difficult preservation situation of a great number of places. The fragmentation of the cultural offer – it is also and particularly in such situations that Italy comes out as a country of one thousand bell towers – produces a high offer and often not prone to attract the right number of visitors. The con-fusion between cultural goods and tourism should be understood in the meaning of making citizens aware of the value of culture. The queues of visitors for big exhibitions are only one side of a system that does not manage to find a balance, between record numbers, the business of culture, the closed halls of the state-owned museums for lack of funds to pay salaries to the personnel. The Ministry for Cultural Goods and Activities has the task to support the growth of the idea of culture which is necessary in Italy.

Such a thing as collective culture does not exist, but exists an idea of immaterial needwhich, set in nowadays’reality, means conscience and will to merge with history and testimonies of the past. The windows serve to show the best parts and to compare excellence in some way, and not only that. In these years the Venice fair was the first to offer the idea of a sustainable development in economic terms and of enlargening of the user target, towards the redefinition of a new model of cultural good, expanded to the all-round vision of a territory: from art to cuisine, traditions to hospitality. The final result is the creation of a system that brings the cultural good at the centre of a spread interest, able to feed oneself concentrating economic and intellectual resources. The union between territory, culture and intelligence can move from the overcoming of stiff geographic and ideological barriers, of party interests and conspiracy huntings. The mission is to belie with concrete data the old saying «carmina non dant panem».