Nomen Nescio is a project born from the desire to explore the concepts of fear and silence, and how these shape certain experiences and identities. We must learn to listen to the stories that are not spoken aloud—the stories of silence.

Every society has a law of noise and therefore also—implicitly or explicitly—a law of silence. With this project, we aim to delve into what our own law of silence is, and the articles and conditions that define it.

The piece is built from a trip to Poland that Paula Blanco undertook at the end of the winter of 2022, at the moment when the full occupation of Ukraine took place. It weaves together the stories of refugees who lost their lives attempting to enter the European Union through the border with Belarus, with those of three women: Chawa Bugajewa (Chechnya), Zala Zazai (Afghanistan), and Olena Apchel (Ukraine). Nomen Nescio is also intended as a reflection on the traces that painful experiences leave on geography and landscape—and, above all, an attempt to turn maps upside down in order to question official narratives.