Mare d'arte Festival - The Art Sea Festival

from 3rd to 12th July 2026

Milano Marittima, Preview: 26th June

Visual art, music, literature, philosophy and live performances – all free of charge – featuring guests from diverse cultural backgrounds, will take place across the city’s public spaces, from the seafront to the Rotonda Primo Maggio, and from the beaches to the harbour.

The festival symbolically opens on 26th June with a Milanese preview hosted by The Sanctuary Milan. The star of the show is Jacopo Di Cera, an internationally renowned artist who, through photography, installations and immersive technologies, tackles environmental, social and human issues with a highly emotive language.

The installation is subsequently moved to Milano Marittima, where it remains open to visitors from July until the end of August.

At the end of August, the festival concludes with a public event next to Valerio Berruti’s monumental work Non basta il canto delle sirene (The Sirens’ Song Is Not Enough), a symbol of the first edition and now part of the city’s heritage. It is an opportunity to bring the cultural legacy of 2025 into dialogue with the new visions of 2026, through a discussion between Valerio Berruti and Jacopo Di Cera.

Events are in italian

Friday 3rd July – 6.30 p.m.

Festival opening cocktail reception + ‘Prospettive’ exhibition opening

• Club Milano 273 and Viale Gramsci / Umami Caffè.

Public opening of the festival with speeches by artist Jacopo Di Cera, curator Nicolas Ballario, artistic director Gianluca Orazi, Milan City Councillor for Culture Tommaso Sacchi, President of the Emilia-Romagna Region Michele de Pascale, Mayor of Cervia Mirko Boschetti, and Cervia City Councillor for Culture Federica Bosi.

Saturday 4th July – 9.00 p.m.

Paolo Stella, True + 10.00 pm Emiliano Blangero with the string duo

• Someplace. Mosquito Beach

Double evening event. Actor, creator and interior designer Paolo Stella will present “True”, his new novel written ten years after his debut with the bestseller “Meet me alla boa”.

This will be followed by a concert on the beach by Emiliano Blangero. A pianist born in 2000 and a pupil of Ezio Bosso, Blangero will perform tracks from his neoclassical album Someplace – a seventy-minute journey through memory and imagination.

Sunday 5th July

• 9.00 p.m. Tommaso Sacchi, Negli occhi della bellezza
• 9.30–9.45 p.m. "MarePineta 100", musical
• 10.30–10.45 p.m. Ariane Diakité, soul concert

Triple evening event. We begin with Tommaso Sacchi, Milan City Council’s Councillor for Culture, who will present “Beauty in the Eyes” on the stage set up within the Sculpture Park. 16 experiences combining art and nature to be enjoyed before the age of 16 (M
Mare d'arte Festival - Diakite ondadori Ragazzi): a book that is itself a thesis by Mare d'Arte in published form.

Following this, MarePineta Resort hosts the musical “MarePineta 100”, dedicated to the history of the legendary venue and its hundred years. The event concludes with a live concert featuring the voice of Ariane Diakité – a Palermo-born artist of Malian origin, raised on soul, R&B and pop, who pays homage to Etta James and Alicia Keys with her versatility, restoring a multi-faceted identity to the local area: the roots of other worlds finding a place in our own.

Wednesday 8th July – 9.45 p.m.

Cristina Donadio, Eleonora#1799

• Rotonda Primo Maggio

A play dedicated to Eleonora Pimentel de Fonseca, a journalist and revolutionary of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, a woman whom official history has long kept in the shadows. Cristina Donadio – an actress in the Neapolitan tradition, trained by Martone, Moscato and Ruccello, and a familiar face alongside Scianel in Gomorra – will bring this overlooked story to the public, accompanied by musician Federico Odling. This aligns with Prospettive’s mission: to give visibility to figures, both female and male, who are normally overlooked.

Thursday 9th July – 9.45 p.m.

Vera Gheno, Nessunə è normale

• Rotonda Primo Maggio

Vera Gheno, a sociolinguist with twenty years’ experience at the Accademia della Crusca and a lecturer in Florence, will explore how the word ‘normal’ constructs or dismantles a sense of belonging, marginalising entire groups. It is the conceptual counterpart to Prospettive: the festival does it with images, Gheno does it with language – both show that what we call normal is merely a perspective, one that we can also overturn.

Friday 10th July – 9.45 p.m.

Edoardo Prati, ‘The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice’

• Rotonda Primo Maggio

Student and creator Edoardo Prati will perform a monologue inspired by “The Battle of the Mice and the Frogs”, a heroic-comic poem attributed to Homer and a parody of heroic epic poetry, which recounts a battle fought between mice and frogs. An ancient and surprisingly playful text, capable of subverting the conventions of myth and offering an unexpected perspective on great literature.

Saturday 11th July – 9.45 p.m.

Paola Iezzi, Iezz, we can!!!

• Rotonda Primo Maggio

Singer-songwriter, producer and DJ, an icon of Italian pop, and a judge on X Factor. She will perform a live set that blends sounds, visions and declarations of aesthetic freedom. Iezzi is a musician who has allowed herself to be viewed from multiple angles – pop icon, DJ, public figure – and who has always been able to bring together high and popular culture, without hierarchies. It is with her that a Rotonda in the Romagna summer can be both an agora and a dancefloor.

Sunday 12th July – 9.45 p.m.

Violante Placido. Zefiro 268

• Public beach

Alongside her acting career in Italy and abroad, Violante Placido nurtures and cultivates her passion for music as a parallel pursuit. She has released two albums as a singer-songwriter: “Don’t be shy” and “Sheepwolf”, and has collaborated with various artists, including Bugo, Mauro Ermanno Giovanardi and Francesco Forni, with a new release coming soon alongside Gianluca De Rubertis (singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and founder of Il Genio, with whom he topped the Italian charts with the track “Pop Porno”).

Late August

Closing event for ‘Prospettive’ next to the artwork Non basta il canto delle sirene

Public event next to Valerio Berruti’s work Non basta il canto delle sirene – the symbolic work of the 2025 edition, which has become part of the municipality’s heritage and is now a permanent feature of the landscape. Jacopo Di Cera will speak with Valerio Berruti in an official declaration of the Festival’s legacy: the work of 2025 meets that of 2026.

For further information

M+C SAATCHI GROUP: info@mcsaatchipr.it

www.maredarte.it

@mare.darte_festival