Translating Venice: Reading a Translated City in Translation

In this chapter, I will discuss an understanding of cities as sites of transla tion, focusing in particular on the city of Venice, to suggest new ways of understanding the spaces we inhabit through the prism of translation. By looking at the city of Venice through the concepts elaborated by Translation Studies, we can in fact perceive all its possibilities of protecting its heritage, while opening up at the same time to its creative transformation. In the second part I will look at two specific experiences of “translation” of Venice: a theater workshop held in the neighborhood of Santa Marta, with the aim of discovering the essence of the space, and reconstructing it through an on-the-road performance, a contemporary arts exhibition held at Crea Cantieri del Contemporaneo, Giudecca, which offered a virtual translation of the city, of its writings, and of its future.