Daily conference pass to Sconfinare Festival 2026

Beyond the Wall: five hours, five perspectives, one square. Saturday, 10 October 2026 | from 10.00 am | Piazza del Sole, Bellinzona Sconfinare Festival

A square is not simply a space to cross. It is a sounding board where words resonate, assert themselves, measure themselves against other words, and change in tone and colour in the ears of those who listen to them. At the heart of the Sconfinare Festival, in Piazza del Sole, Beyond the Wall returns as a central moment of this year’s edition: five consecutive encounters exploring the relationship between speech and silence from different perspectives, observing it in the concrete forms through which it shapes public and private life. From political speech that shapes consensus to silence as a practice of attention; from language rooted in the brain to writing that confronts the opacity of experience; and finally to the sea as a physical and imaginary boundary, a place of solitude, storytelling and listening. Massimo Giannini, Nicoletta Polla-Mattiot, Andrea Moro, Mauro Covacich, Björn Larsson and Alex Bellini will accompany the audience on a journey that weaves together journalism, philosophy, neuroscience, literature, exploration and the maritime imagination. Five independent yet complementary perspectives, probing what words can build, preserve or transform, and what silence, in its many forms, can still teach us. Within the concentrated time of a single day, the square thus becomes a contemporary agora: an open space for thought, listening and exchange, where we can cross boundaries together, through one of the most decisive thresholds of our present.

10.00 am | Massimo Giannini The Words of Power 11.30 am | Nicoletta Polla-Mattiot Silence Is Revolution 2.00 pm | Andrea Moro Where Words Are Born 3.30 pm | Mauro Covacich The Shape of What Escapes 5.00 pm | Björn Larsson and Alex Bellini The Sea Does Not Keep Silent