The Querini Stampalia Foundation and the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation: the role of these two institutions in contributing to the definition and sustainability of Venice through a youth policy.

Abstract

This thesis intends to propose a reflection on the social weight of cultural institutions and their capacity to participate in the definition and socio-economic sustainability of a city. This reflection will be brought more specifically in the Venetian context, a city today facing a massive depopulation opposed to mass tourism in a context of climate change, seeking therefore to transform and rethink itself to ensure its sustainability. Therefore, the Querini Stampalia Foundation (QSF) and the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation (BLMF) have since their creation a close link with Venice and an important and undeniable social weight. This thesis seeks to find out whether these foundations participate in the development and necessary transformation of the city, focusing the research on the prism of youth. Each of these institutions, placing young people at the heart of their raison d'être, have an impact on the city and have a capacity to attract a younger population which Venice needs. By analysing the aims, the programming, the cultural policies but also the changes of orientation that these cultural institutions have undergone since their creation, this thesis will attempt to investigate on the links between youth, these two foundations and Venice, in order to understand whether cultural organisations and the youth have a role to play in the social and economical sustainability of a city.