The island of care. Lazzaretto nuovo.

Abstract

Lazzaretto nuovo is an island in the northern lagoon of Venice. The island served Venice as a quarantine spot for people and goods, during plague epidemics between the 15th and 18th centuries. After the end of the plague waves and a period of military use, Lazzaretto nuovo was abandoned in the Seventies of the last century. Two organizations obtained to manage the island, with a project of restoration and revitalization, opening it up for visitors over the next years. Today, Lazzaretto nuovo hosts the headquarters of an ecomuseum for the dissemination of its naturecultural heritage, aimed at involving the community in the territory-city of Venice. Enriched by its legacy as a forerunner of the public healthcare system, Lazzaretto nuovo can contribute to contemporary understandings of care, health, and wellbeing. Care is adopted as the central element for the interpretation of socio-ecological relations which undergo the island’s activities and existence. With a focus on nature and wellbeing, care emerges as a relational value and grasps many aspects of human-environment relations. The case study of Lazzaretto nuovo is particularly unique in the frame of the Venetian lagoon, where most minor islands are left abandoned or sold to private owners, excluding the population from their use. The widespread nature of the ecomuseum calls for an engagement with the other islands of the lagoon and with islands of the world, which face similar problems of abandonment, exclusion, island grabbing, and overtourism.