Sustainability Fair on Zattere This Weekend

Attendees of the 2nd annual Fiera per la Decrescita talk on the Zattere, with Palladio's church of Redentore in background

The full name of the open air fair taking place this weekend on the Zattere in the sestiere of Dorsoduro is Il Fiera per la Decrescita e la Città Sostenibile, or what might be translated as the Degrowth and Sustainable City Fair. Degrowth of course is an odd-sounding word in English, and flies in the face of that most cherished of terms in contemporary Capitalism, growth, which the corporate world and the puppet governments they own pursue with all the blindly fanatical self-interest of cancer cells. Indeed, as far as I know cancer cells are the only entities in nature in which infinite uninterrupted growth serves as a guiding principle.

In any case, this weekend's fair on the Zattere is committed to alternative visions of economic and social life based on something other than the fantasy of ever-increasing production and consumption. There are workshops for adults and for children, meetings and talks, live performances, and booths selling food and goods produced in a manner consistent with the fair's ideals.

At the very least, if you happen to be the neighborhood I suggest picking up a package of the pasta di semola di grano duro biologica--a high-protein pasta made from organic durum wheat--that is native to the Puglia region. I used it last night to make Pasta alla Norma and it was delicious.

A full schedule of this weekend's events in Venice, as well as next weekend's fair in Mestre, may be found below (for some reason, the earlier-scheduled Venice fair appears on the 2nd page of the pdf):

http://www.altrofuturo.net/Portals/0/Documents/Comunicati/pieghevole%20Altro%20Futuro%202013.pdf

Some of the fair's many tents lined up along the Fondamenta delle Zattere yesterday evening

A discussion in the tent of the Venetian community garden group Spiazzi Verdi (http://spiazziverdi.blogspot.it/)

A discussion takes place in the left half of the Libreria Marco Polo tent, independent publishers' books are for sale at right (http://www.libreriamarcopolo.com/)

Fair-goers look over various products made from organic almonds