Volcanic Attitude 2026
For its fifth edition, Volcanic Attitude Festival takes place in late summer, from 25 to 29 September 2026. In this encounter of art and science, the journey sets off from Naples, at the foot of Vesuvius, towards Stromboli and Vulcano and back, taking in the evocative and extraordinary sites along the Aeolian routes.
Special guests of this edition are the volcanoes of Iceland and Martinique, in dialogue with the Mediterranean landscape.
During the Festival we explore the geographies of shifting lands and attend to the flashes of light that speak from cosmic and sidereal distances. We imagine acoustic and sonic waves that populate the underwater world where other volcanoes lie, massive and silent.
The programme gives voice to a multitude of ‘vibrant elements’ by alternating artistic performances, scientific discussions, volcano climbs and thermal baths, moments of conviviality and the rediscovery of collective rituals.
In our current world of conflict, this year’s Festival aims to reflect on the ethical dimension that drives artists and scientists in their search for possible visions, harmonious balances and an attentiveness to what exists.
Volcanic
Attitude
2026
25-29
September
The protagonists
Alba Balmaseda, Kathrin Doppler, Ines Lechleitner
Artistic Research Group
Bjarki Bragason
Artist
Nicola Capone, Simona Da Pozzo, Paola Mautone
Philosopher, Artist, Agronomist
Casagrande // Giorgini
Performative Research Duo
Stefano Graziani
Artist
Anna Líndal
Artist
Pietro Lo Cascio
Naturalist and founder of NESOS
Rachele Maistrello
Artist
Alessando Manfrin
Artist
Melina Mulas
Photographer
Magnús Pálsson
Artist
curated by An Paenhuysen - assistant to the artist Petur Magnusson
Paolo Piattelli
INFN Physicist
Massimo Ricciardo
Artist
Carlo Andrea Rozzi
physicist CNR National Research Center
Vulcani Sacri
Artistic Research Group
Laura Chatenay-Rivuaday e Giuseppe Schillaci
Curated by Gaetano la Rosa
The program
The program*
The group of participants, together with the artists and researchers, meets at the Garden of Largo Arianiello for an introduction to the Festival. The journey begins in a city characterized by vibrant soils, by layers of volcanic ground and constant telluric movements.
Naples
16:00
GIARDINO DEI CAPEZZOLI
Largo Proprio d’Arianello – Metro Dante
Vibrant Soils*
Paola Mautone, agronoma UniNa – Simona Da Pozzo, artist – Nicola Capone, philosopher
Anna Líndal, artist and researcher with The Seismographic Trace of Emotion
Bjarki Bragason's Installations, artista e di Simona Da Pozzo, artista
Talk
The soil is a vital ecological laboratory of connections and unexpected germinations. It is a memory of generations and interspecies relationships. It is a vibrant environment, a stratification in continuous transformation.
Port of Naples
Porto Calata di Massa, Naples
NAVE LAURANA – Siremar
The navigation is a gateway to the islands: time slows down, and floating becomes an extraordinary dimension that embeds us within the marine environment, where we are guests in our human vulnerability. It requires an attitude of listening from a seismic coastline to the Mediterranean wave motion. We travel along the route of submerged volcanoes, guided by the narrative imagination that the festival entrusts to physicists and artists.
18:30
BOARDING To Eolian Islands
20:00
Aperitif on the upper deck and departure
Naples> Aeolian Islands
SAILING TO THE AEOLIAN ISLANDS
La navigazione è una porta verso le isole, il tempo si rallenta, il galleggiamento è una dimensione non ordinaria che ci pone in un ambiente, quello marino, di cui siamo ospiti nella nostra vulnerabiltà umana, necessita di un’attitudine d’ascolto da una costa sismica al moto ondoso mediterraneo. Si percorre la rotta dei vulcani sommersi, con l’immaginazione narrativa che il festival affida ai fisici ed artistə.
epistolary exchange*
Rachele Maistrello, artist
Intimate performance
LAURANA FERRY
22:00
BAIA
Marco Casagrande e Nicolò Giorgini, Duo of dancers and choreographers
Performance
UPPER DECK – SHIP LAURANA
* temporary title
* The program is being defined and may be subject to change
Program *
NAPLES>Vulcano
6:00
Sunrise on Stromboli
LAURANA FERRY
9:30
Breakfast with the protagonists
Bathing Vulcano
Alba Balmaseda, Kathrine Doppler, Ines Lechleitner,
Introduction to the research project
km3-scale Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT)
Paolo Piattelli, Fisico INFN
Introduction to the research project
LAURANA FERRY
10:45
ARRIVAL IN Vulcano
12:00
Coffee table
Welcome Coffee Break on the island with artists and researchers
Hotel Les Sables Noirs
16:00
Visit to the INGV “Marcello Carapezza” Center
with Marcello Liotta INGV volcanologist
17:00
Obsidian Threshold
Rachele Maistrello, artist
Participatory action
HOTEL LES SABLES NOIRS, Baia di Ponente, Vulcano
18:30
Opening Night
Sunset aperitif and dinner
TERRAZZA LES SABLES NOIRS – PORTO DI PONENTE
VIBRANT ELEMENTS
Presentation of the protagonists of the festival
Shaken Grounds. Art as Seismography
with Lucie Strecker Shaken grounds collective) e Ana Škegro (MSU) Presentation of the European project in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Zagreb (MSU), the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Iceland University of the Arts.
22:00
INTERVISTE INCROCIATE
Cielo Stellato*
Alessandro Manfrin, artist
km3-scale Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT)* II parte
Paolo Piattelli, Fisico INFN
A dialogue on the visible and invisible relationships within the landscape that surrounds us.
Qual è la prefigurazione della natura che guardiamo e cosa sfugge? Cosa intercetta e ci mostra il progetto sperimentale KM3NeT Seismic Network (K3SN) dell’ Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare? Quali particelle provenienti dallo spazio siderale interagiscono con gli abissi marini siciliani? Un dialogo tra il Fisico Paolo Piatteli e l’artista Alessandro Manfrin che introduce il suo lavoro di ricerca che si muove tra immagini di paesaggi “naturali” e la reale configurazione sedimentata dall’azione umana costante.
*Program to be defined.
* temporary title
Vulcano –MORNING
Bathing Vulcano
Alba Balmaseda, Kathrine Doppler, Ines Lechleitner, Artistic Research Group
Il termalismo è una caratteristica nota e riconosciuta nell’isola di Vulcano. Dai fanghi sulfurei alle acque calde il rito dell’immersione, del bagno collettivo a fini estetici e salutari è una tradizione che si rinnova e che porta con sé una cultura che cerca nella natura una fonte di benessere, di legame rigenerativo accessibile. Performance e azione colllettivaBjarki Bragason, artist
Nei pressi del faraglione Spallanzani sotto il quale si apre la spiaggia delle acque calde. Si uniscono tradizioni tra isole vulcaniche, le Eolie e l’Islanda InstallazioneCulinaria. Cooking together with ancient methods
Massimo Ricciardo, artist
Passeggiata e racconto su I modi antichi di cucinare accompagnati anche dalla presenza del naturalista eoliano Pietro lo Cascio BAIA DI LEVANTE, spiaggia delle acque caldeAFTERNOON
Ascent to the La Fossa Crater, Vulcano
Archiving Surprise
Anna Líndal, artist
Un racconto performativo delle ricerche e le esperienze immersive che l’artista ha condotto nel suo paesa, l’Islanda, come il nuotare tra ghiaccio e pomice nel cratere del Grímsvötn, nel ghiacciaio Vatnajökull, nel 2013. Come rileggere il percorso passato estraendo dall’archiviazione nuove fonti di indagine e creazione? Talk performativoReflections on the Scientist’s Vocation in Times of War
Carlo Andrea Rozzi, CNR Physicist
Archiving surprises.Under The Volcano and Other Stories, (II round)
Stefano Graziani, artist
L’artista ritorna nei luoghi visitati nel 2009 (al tempo fu pubblicato il libro d’artista dalla Galleria Mazzoleni Under the Volcano and Other Stories) con l’idea di creare una geografia della instabilità, delle cose che cambiano, anche in quei paesaggi rocciosi che sembrano immutabili. EsplorazioneEVENING
Obsidian Threshold
Rachele Maistrello, artista Obsidian Threshold, coglie la presenza dell’ossidiana, in questo passaggio, non solo materiale vulcanico, ma dispositivo concettuale e visivo che rende visibile la transizione tra il nero della quiete geologica e il rosso dell’eruzione ancora attiva. L’artista con sagome da lei create invita il pubblico ad una narrazione al limite della fantascienza non lineare, fatta di apparizioni, interruzioni e continui slittamenti percettivi. Azione PartecipativaCulinaria. Cooking together with ancient methods
A collective kitchen
Massimo Ricciardo, artist
Recuperando la cottura di tradizione eoliana che sfrutta il calore del suolo, l’artista invita a condividere la convivialità del cucinare all’aria aperta come un rito di alleanza e di conoscenza. Azione Condivisa CASA, VIA LENTIA, VULCANO<
The program*
Vulcano>STROMBOLI
Morning
Mini-mob-shop >
Collective action of Mobile workshop with curator An Paenhuysen and collaboration with Petur Magnuson.
Völundarhús (Project for a Labyrinth, 1980)
by Magnús Pálsson, artist
Action/poster installation
STROMBOLI, Spiaggia di Scari
AFTERNOON
BY BOAT > GINOSTRA
Vulcani Sacri >
with Giuseppe Schillaci and Laura Chatenay-Rivauday
IN NAVIGATION toward the Sciara of Stromboli and GINOSTRA
Ginostra
Cross (1996/2013) >
Partial reenactment of the “non-voice choir” Cross (1996/2013) by Magnús Pálsson, and screening with curator An Paenhuysen and the collaboration of Petur Magnuson.
Le mie Eolie **
Melina Mulas >
Collective Photography Workshop on the Landscape. Meeting with a group of students from the Faculty of Architecture of the Swiss University of Mendrisio and activation of an open action dedicated to photographic observation of the landscape, following the teachings of Ugo Mulas and Nini Mulas.
Wandering workshop
GINOSTRA, STROMBOLI
20.00
Boarding and return TOWARD NAPLES
EVENING
Cielo stellato
Alessandro Manfrin, artist
Installations and video screenings
The voyage concludes by returning to the port of departure. Artist Alessandro Manfrin reflects, through his erratic installations stratified like a visual relational diary over the days of the festival on the multiple readings of a landscape in which nature and human presence bring forth, in a sometimes challening coexistence, the contradictions and the threads indissolubly knotted between the “wild” and the “political.”
LAURANA FERRY
* Program to be defined
** temporary title
Does the Volcanic attitude festival experience find us changed? We talk about it on a coffee table before heading home.
7:20
Possible transformations
Breakfast with artists, scientists, and festival participants.
Coffee table
Sbarco a napoli
8:00
End of the festival
The programme may be subject to change due to weather conditions.
THE VOLCANIC ATTITUDE FESTIVAL
Volcanic Attitude is a contemporary culture festival that brings together artists and researchers for a program of explorations, lectures, and performances, taking part in a collective journey that follows the volcanic route between Naples and the Aeolian Islands.
discover the past editions
Find out how to participate
Festival Pass
Full pass for all cultural activities: €90
Daily Ticket - Eolian Islands €40
Buy your ticket on EventBrite
Volcanic Journey
Contact us to receive a quote for the Volcanic tour, including travel from Naples to the Eolian Islands and accommodation, or for travel only.
Scrivici a: festival@volcanicattitude.org
Volcanic Attitude 2026 è realizzato da
Co-founded by
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European. Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Main Partner
Con il Patrocinio di
Partner Culturale Istituzionale
Cultural Partners
Partner tecnici e territoriali
IL TEAM di Volcanic attitude 2026
Curated and organized by: Helga Franza ~ Susanna Ravelli ~ Giulia Restifo
An Paenhuysen – guest curator of Magnus Palson
Davide Pompejano – Video Documentation
Emilio Messina – Photo
Francesca Salemi – social media manager
Carmine Catacchio– production assistant
Magda Placek – web site assistant
Eugenia Mulattieri – administration
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