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 neighborhood, 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.

TECH SHEET

MEDIUM
Multichannel sound installation (6 channels) with suspended paper element

DURATION
approx. 60 minutes

AUDIO FORMAT
6 channels, WAV 48kHz / 24bit

LANGUAGE
Italian and Sicilian (original voices), with English transcriptions

OVERALL DIMENSIONS
Variable depending on exhibition space

CREDITS
Project developed within the framework of Arteficial, organized by Aiku – Art Enterprise Culture, the research center of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.