“I wanted to go against the tendency of the people who are pushed away by Venice, [by] an administration that doesn’t take care of it. Especially for young people, it’s very difficult to live in Venice, because it’s very expensive to afford rent, to find a home, to find a well-paid job that allows you to live in Venice,” Faye said. “I chose to go back precisely for this reason, to fight for a different city, a city that welcomes people and doesn’t make them leave.”
At first, the meetings were convened by the usual attendees: a mix of local grassroots committees, from a housing assembly to the group against big ships in Venice. But organizer Federica Toninello, 33, also began to notice people whom they had never seen before, whom, she said, “were very angry, not only about the impact of Bezos’ wedding on the city, but also about Bezos himself.”
The time-frame was tight—activists had roughly a month to organize from the outset of their efforts. But little by little, they made their plans visible. In mid-June, they hung a poster inscribed with Bezos’ name, crossed out by a red X, on the bell tower of the city’s famous San Giorgio Maggiore, timed to coincide with a press conference held by the city’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro. The timing paid off, as the mayor dedicated a segment of his press conference to maligning the group, per reporting from Venezia Today. (Teen Vogue reached out to the city of Venice’s press office for comment.)
“In what other city is a committee created against the wedding of a person this important?,” he told journalists. “I’m embarrassed of these people.”
Anadolu/Getty Images
By the start of Bezos’ wedding week, it was clear that something was different, and that the world was paying attention. On Monday, Greenpeace Italia and UK group “Everyone Hates Elon” unfurled a giant banner, more than 60 feet long and wide, in Venice’s iconic St. Mark’s Square. The banner read, “If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax” with an image of a laughing Bezos.
