OdisSea Contemporanea

An artistic odyssey on the Pontine coast

OdisSea Contemporanea is a contemporary art festival that unfolds as a true exhibition journey between Sabaudia and San Felice Circeo, in the province of Latina, Lazio. The name is a play on words linking the Homeric Odyssey to the sea: according to tradition, it was on these very shores that the sorceress Circe welcomed Ulysses, and the Circeo promontory preserves this myth in its name. The festival, curated by Fabio D'Achille, weaves together sculpture, raku ceramics, photography, painting, and installations, placing contemporary languages in dialogue with the myth, history, and nature of this stretch of the Pontine coastline.

The MAD Museo d'Arte Diffusa

Behind the event is the MAD Museo d'Arte Diffusa, an entity founded in 2005 as a contemporary art review in the Latina area, which became a cultural association in 2008 and a 'diffused museum' in 2013. The MAD philosophy is to take art out of traditional galleries and scatter it across civic museums, historic towers, squares, and even local venues: a widespread exhibition model that OdisSea Contemporanea applies to the coastal circuit between Sabaudia and Circeo.

The festival venues

The exhibition core consists of fascinating museum and monumental sites:

• Museo Emilio Greco — in Piazza del Comune, Sabaudia, dedicated to the great Sicilian sculptor, under the scientific direction of Gregorio Maria Mattei;
• Museo del Mare e della Costa "Marcello Zei" — in Piazza Alberto Moravia, Sabaudia, directed by Giulia Sirgiovanni;
• Torre dei Templari — home to the Fondazione Marcello Zei in Piazza Lanzuisi, in the historic center of San Felice Circeo;
• Various urban spaces, such as the Centrale in Piazza Vittorio Veneto.

Exhibitions between land and sea

Each edition offers a cycle of solo and collective exhibitions linked to the relationship between humanity and the sea. The 2026 edition opened with "TerrAmare" by Stefania Beltrami and Liliana Raimondi, a body of clay and raku ceramic works reinterpreting shells, waves, shipwrecks, and marine creatures, continuing with the widespread photographic exhibition "Ruminazione mentale" by Elliot Grieshofer at the Fondazione Zei in San Felice Circeo. In previous editions, the festival has hosted underwater photography, projects inspired by Circe's metamorphoses, and pictorial installations by local and international artists.

In the heart of the Circeo National Park

The festival is sponsored by the Municipality of Sabaudia and is part of the Circeo tourist and cultural circuit, nestled between coastal dunes, Lake Paola, and the rationalist architecture of the 'new towns'. Visiting the exhibitions is also an opportunity to discover two of the most evocative villages in the Lazio region: Sabaudia, with its 1930s rationalist center, and San Felice Circeo, perched on the promontory between Templar history and Homeric legends. Admission to the 2026 edition is free, an open invitation for residents and tourists to experience the Pontine summer through contemporary art.