no blank pages is a sound installation based on the testimonies gathered during a week-long summer artistic residency in Palermo’s Tribunali district. Beginning at Palazzo Butera — and inspired by its almost utopian mission — the work expands through the neighbourhood, listening to the voices of social actors, passersby, tourists, and both long-term and newly arrived residents.

Set against the sonic backdrop of a Palermo that no longer exists, the installation traces the portrait of a complex city, marked by deep tensions and contradictions intensified by gentrification and the pressures of mass tourism. A pervasive desire for care emerges amid the fragility of the city’s social and spatial fabric, intertwining with nostalgic memories and a collective awareness of the absence of a shared civic vision. Each testimony becomes a page within a collective narrative — a gesture of resistance against erasure, asserting the will not to be silenced, not to be reduced to a blank page.

The installation is a 6-channel, site specific sound installation, completed by a 70g washi paper strip (320x25cm) hanging from the ceiling and displaying the English transcriptions of the recorded testimonies.
no blank pages is a commission of University Ca’Foscari of Venice – School of Management, Aiku – Arte, Impresa Cultura, and took place in Palermo, at Palazzo Butera, during Arteficial 2025, establishing a dialogue with Massimo and Francesca Valsecchi’s collection and exposition spaces.