Nicoletta Polla-Mattiot: silence is a revolution
Doors open at 11:15 am. Unreserved seating.
Event information
Description
Nicoletta Polla-Mattiot | Silence Is a Revolution Beyond the Wall Saturday, 11 October 2026 | 11:30 am | Piazza del Sole, Bellinzona Sconfinare Festival
In a time marked by constant noise, overlapping voices and relentless communication, what can silence still teach us? We are accustomed to thinking of it as absence, emptiness or interruption.
But what if it were instead a form of presence? A space capable of restoring depth to words and clarity to thought? Drawing on her latest book, Il silenzio è rivoluzione (Einaudi, 2026), Nicoletta Polla-Mattiot invites us to rediscover silence not as an escape from the world, but as an act of resistance to the noise of the present.
A journalist, essayist and scholar of non-verbal communication, she has spent more than thirty years exploring silence as a tool for connection, communication and awareness. Her work brings together philosophy, art, neuroscience, spirituality and everyday life, showing how silence can become both a personal and collective practice: not the opposite of speech, but the condition that allows words to recover a sense of proportion, listening and responsibility.
A necessary reflection for imagining a new ecology of existence, in which learning to be silent does not mean withdrawing, but becoming more fully present to ourselves, to others and to the world.
The event will be moderated by Sandra Sain, cultural journalist.
Nicoletta Polla-Mattiot is a journalist and essayist. She has contributed to the creation and direction of numerous publishing projects. Alongside her journalistic work, she has spent many years researching non-verbal communication and silence as a tool for communication. In 2010, she co-founded the Accademia del silenzio with Duccio Demetrio. Since 2019, she has taught Silenzio e Comunicazione and Ecologia del Silenzio at IULM University in Milan. Her books include Pause. Sette oasi di sosta (Mimesis Edizioni, 2012), Singolare Femminile. Perché le donne devono fare silenzio (Mimesis Edizioni, 2019), Esplorare il silenzio (Enrico Damiani Editore, 2019) and Il silenzio è rivoluzione. Ascoltare il suono segreto della vita (Einaudi, 2026).