JULY POP UP SEASON 2024
By Rafael Escardó
19 – 21 July 2024
Private View: 19 July, 6-9pm
Marica Formal is an on going art installation that takes the form of a queer activism and visual identity brand project by artist Rafael Escardó; taking Lima, Peru, as a starting point. Textually, Marica Formal, in Spanish, means “Formal Faggot”.
Currently, the Peruvian cis straight male population uses the words Marica and Maricón (faggot) as a colloquial insult to refer to other straight men as cowards in the most normalised way. Escardó has identified this practice as a form of systematic homophobia in the country and made it the brand’s mission to reclaim the words. The pilot product of the brand is the classic pair of long white sportswear socks, with the brand logo at the top of the elastic. We have adopted a change-via-example strategy, in which, by asking the audience, members of the community, to wear the socks and spread around the city, they’ll change the meaning of the words “step by step”.
On the longer run, Escardó also envisions the project to become more than just a socks brand, he wants it to be a whole platform that promotes queer values through visual culture. Following this line of thoughts, he’s made a series of prints, using tools such as the Peruvian Andean Baroque syncretism, to reference three different artist that, to him, represent queer values. Inviting the audience to tap deeper into them, from the mainstream to the underground: Tom of Finland, Lee Lozano and Giuseppe Campuzano. Ultimately, the brand will draw the profile of a Marica Formal individual and promote it’s community values and culture, starting in Peru and expanding into other Hispanic speaking countries that need the adjustment.