Roberto Canziani on POLIS 2026, “Quante scene!”, May 15 2026

POLIS Festival 2026. Why doesn’t Romagna border the Baltic Sea?, “Quante scene!”, May 15 2026

“[…] Baltic, that is to say Nordic, defined by the borders of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Finland, was the theme of the Polis Festival 2026, an event that ErosAntEros has been organising for the past nine years in what was once known as Romagna Felix.

These are not exactly happy times. Yet Agata Tomšič and Davide Sacco, the artistic directors and the two halves of ErosAntEros, are working hard to bring a focus on the international contemporary scene to Ravenna as well. Indeed, they are determined to set their compass in a different direction each year.

So, following on from the Iberian Peninsula in the last edition, they have chosen the frigid north for 2026. Artistically speaking, it isn’t quite that cold. It’s just a shame that here in Italy we know so little about it – very little indeed – limiting ourselves to those three or four names we’ve inherited from the 20th century: Nekrošius, Tuminas, Koršunovas, the divisive Hermanis…

All in all, my three days at POLIS Festival 2026 were a refreshing Nordic dip. They were balanced by the poignant Adriatic beauty of Ravenna and its mosaics, Byzantine and otherwise.

Which even managed to find their way into my breakfasts. The surprise of finding, first thing in the morning, mosaic tiles shaped like cookies, had something prophetic about it.

For when, in the future drift of the continents, the Baltic Sea will overlook Ravenna”.