Luca, I want to start with the name, because it is the first thing anyone meets. The work existed before the name did: "UPOs", "Unidentified Performing Objects". When did the name arrive, and what did it make possible that was not possible before? I keep wondering whether it was a way of protecting the work from being read as one thing only, or a way of finally reading it yourself.
"UPOs" is etymologically related to "UFOs: Unidentified Flying Objects", objects seen in the sky whose origin is unknown and which some think may be spacecraft from other planets. The naming "Unidentified Performing Objects" came around 2020, when, as a private investigator in drag, I started looking at my practice since 2017 through an investigative lens while writing official reports on behalf of the semi-fictional company TLSB. It is both a recognisable and ambiguous name. It points towards something that resembles a category, but at its conceptual core is a non-category. Not wearable enough to be everyday shoes or garments, wearable enough to be performative devices. Both shoes and sculptures, garments and paintings, and none at the same time.
A non-category that still sounds like a category. That is a very good place to stand. And there is an inheritance underneath it: your grandfather, Enzo Craca, was a shoemaker, and in the V&A residency final exhibition you placed his tools and his shoes alongside the "UPOs". So the shoe reaches you as something handed down, long before it becomes a subject. When did you realise that the object you had grown up around was also the one that could carry everything you wanted to say about bodies, status and power?
I didn't have an epiphany or a clear moment when I suddenly realised the importance of shoes in my artistic practice. It happened naturally, gradually and somehow unknowingly. Since I was a child and later as a teenager, I have been attracted to shoes. I remember obsessively trying to find a particular pair of golden-red trainers in my size, and trying to convince my parents to buy me a special edition pair of electric-blue football boots. I have always loved the feeling of wearing a new pair of shoes and moving in them. Particularly with football boots, I have to admit that I must have been seduced by the branding strategies of the labels, and I was even more intrigued by their claims: "wearing this pair of boots you will run faster", "pass better", or "shoot with more precision". These claims of magical powers in shoe advertising felt otherworldly, unique and very intriguing. To the point that, as a young amateur football player, I started to believe in these powers and perceived a great difference when playing with certain boots rather than others. Was it an illusion? Or was there something else worth exploring?
It was only in 2024 that my shoemaking family connection, through my grandfather Enzo and my grandmother Carla, was consciously brought into my artistic work and research. But my heritage had lingered and slowly revealed itself from my childhood onwards, without me actively recognising its roots.
Heels and platform shoes have signalled almost every possible thing across four centuries: aristocracy, war, femininity, masculinity, subculture, ridicule. Of everything you found in that history, what surprised you most, and what does it tell you about how quickly a code attached to a body can flip meaning?
I was very surprised to learn that the first historically recognised 'high heels' were worn by 10th-century Persian male cavalry soldiers to better hold the stirrups while horse riding. A practical invention and tool of war at their origin.
Heeled shoes have been worn by people of all genders and classes since their introduction; the contemporary idea of the red 'feminine' stiletto is simply a current code that we tend to take for granted. But we couldn't be more wrong; when heels are approached through history, the stereotypical gender assumptions collapse, revealing unexpected relationships with queerness, war, power, and class.
The layered and surprising history of heels reminds us that gender is a social construct and that the stereotypes and perceived contemporary 'rules' and etiquette we often feel obliged to apply to our bodies and identities are conventions we have unknowingly internalised from patriarchal societies, rather than immutable realities and truths. Therefore, we are invited to build our own truths, realities, genders, sexualities, and identities; looking back in time while projecting ourselves towards a more inclusive, informed, and diverse future.
The most feminised object in the Western wardrobe begins as a piece of military equipment, and everything we assume about it today is roughly fifty years old. I want to go into the studio now, because that history arrives in your hands as a physical object. Your "UPOs" almost always begin with a shoe that has already lived: 1970s platform boots, 1980s heels, second-hand men's shoes from the 2000s. Onto them you build plastics, aluminium, hybrid rubber, epoxy, XPS, studs, acrylics, lacquer, leather. How do you choose the pair you are going to work on, what do you see in it before you touch it, and at what point does it stop being a shoe somebody once wore and become something else?
I have a deep interest and curiosity in genuine vintage platform boots. They are very rare, especially in sizes larger than 8UK (42EU). The 1970s platform boots became fashionable for men, and as a widespread phenomenon, men wore heels for approximately a decade. The 1970s were years when sexual, cultural and political revolutions took place. Working with genuine vintage platforms is, for me, an attempt to activate and access these past energies, stories and ideas. When choosing a shoe as a starting point for an artwork, I first think practically: look at the size, whether it is physically possible to add elements and forms and if, when added, the shoe can retain its function. Then I assess the formal qualities like colour, design and construction lines. I proceed with sketches, and then the making process can begin. A shoe becomes something else when it is hard to pin down and identify, when its main function is unclear, when it becomes mysterious and layered, when it generates questions rather than providing answers.
Questions rather than answers. And yet the objects are not gentle about it: your work has been described as violent and tender at once, hostile and seductive. To dismantle a hyper-masculine figure you first have to wear it: the detective, the uniform, the hard lacquered surface. Is there a point where inhabiting a code stops being critique and becomes pleasure, and does that worry you or interest you?
A code interests me when it is something to be broken, appropriated and reassembled. When it is an opportunity to venture into the unknown, to create a different identity, to access queerness, to dig deeper. I am more interested in decoding rather than coding, but decoding would not exist if there weren't codes at the source to be cracked and reimagined. So, inhabiting a code can be pleasurable? Yes, and comforting too. But what is comforting is not always the best choice for us, for what we truly can become. Discomfort is generative when channelled, and confusion is, for me, an inspiration rather than an obstacle.
A code worries me when it is taken for granted and not questioned. For instance, when men feel compelled to be 'more masculine', assertive, violent, unemotional. When sexism, racism and homophobia are internalised and normalised. When women and gender-non-conforming communities are attacked and discriminated against. When the binary seems like the only option. When gender becomes a prison rather than a joyful site of exploration and embodiment.
Thank you for that, especially the part about discomfort being generative. I want to end on the other side of the room, with the person looking. Someone with no art background stops in front of one of your "UPOs". Their first thought is usually practical: can you actually walk in these, has anyone ever worn them, do they hurt. Their second is quieter: am I missing something, is this meant for me? What would you say to that person, and what would you tell them to do with the object in front of them?
Yes, it is possible to wear the great majority of my "Unidentified Performing Objects". I try them on in the studio while assembling them to test their strength and stability. They don't hurt in the same way that stilettos do; they generally originate from platform boots, with wider soles and a less steep incline. Performers walk in them on special occasions, such as live performances and exhibitions. "Unidentified Performing Objects", at their best, function as portals to access alternative realities and to liberate new identities. So, to the quieter person, I would say: if you are interested in exploring different perspectives, looking at things from a new point of view, and if you are curious about your identity, these "UPOs" can be useful to you.