Noah Pica (b. 1994, Los Angeles, CA)

I am an artist based in New York City. I hold an MFA from Hunter College and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design

How do we define normal?

How do we design normal?

I grew up in a glass closet, with the people around me sensing my queerness before I had the chance to declare it. Interactions with peers became a complex calculation; each move focused on appearing neutral, even unremarkable. I find myself returning to this ambiguous “normal” with my artistic inquiries.

I seek to understand the ways in which the infrastructure and products of our designed environments accommodate social definitions of normalcy. I linger on the prefabricated products that feel most forgettable: the yellow pencils on school desks, the lined papers filling notebooks, the collared button-downs that hang in each closet. These objects are so familiar as to be unnoticed, yet their presence is influential. Our products are uniform by necessity, letting us anticipate their functions. This uniformity provides us with convenience – but it fosters conformity as its banal outcome.

email: noahpica [at] gmail [dot] com

instagram: @no___duh