I come from Italy, where our language is deeply tied to traditional gender norms. Every single word is strictly gendered, even objects. If a word ends with a, it’s female, and if it’s o, it’s male. It’s very straightforward. 

When the concept of "non-binary" emerged, people started panicking. The idea of challenging the binary gender system seemed to threaten our language's very structure. With good intentions, albeit somewhat patronizing, the Italian government introduced an enigmatic addition to our alphabet: the letter ə (a fusion of 'o' and 'a'), a symbol to bridge the gender chasm. While “ə” is the most common sound in the English language, hardly anyone in Italy uses or understands it. It feels out of place in a language unaccustomed to such a sound. Nobody knows how to use this new letter, either. It’s foreign to us. As a non-binary individual, I, too, find resonance in this foreignness. I am, literally, unlabeled. 

Credimi, Chiamami, Vedimi / Believe Me, Call Me, See Me encapsulates this sense of displacement, this erasure of clarity and tradition, a scream into the world begging to be recognized. Through figural studies, appropriated images, and portraiture of non-binary individuals, the series reflects upon the enigmatic yet oddly familiar, situating bodies and identities living outside of language and framed by performativity and anonymity. As our existence—now made into a matters of political opinion—oscillates between affirmation and negation, these photographs engage in a perpetual game of hide and seek, seen and unseen.