WEARING THE WRONG UNIFORM$32
            Noah Pica
            2022









Wearing the Wrong Uniform revisits the comical, often clumsy, and very queer ways Noah Pica’s outward identity evolved while in Catholic school. Using the photocopier to pile images on top of one another, Pica ties in snippets of various cultural references onto a paper doll. As the book progresses, images ranging from Michelangelo’s David to goofy face filters coincide with stock photos of school uniforms and corporate attire. The book takes on a silly tone, reenacting the impulsive ways queer kids emulate an unlikely grouping of cultural figures and personal aesthetics. However, a melancholic personal search underscores the book’s content, as Pica navigates the challenges of finding a place to express queerness within an unwelcoming heteronormative world. As each page introduces a new image, the visual material from the previous pages deteriorates almost as quickly as it emerged. Though the paper doll was generated through a photocopier, the final book is composed of risograph prints with laserjet mini books machine-stitched onto select pages.

This title is held in the collections of:
Harvard University
Temple University
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University
Virginia Commonwealth University 
The Walker Art Center