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"Arca means 'box' or 'wooden' in very old Spanish. It's a ceremonial container where you store jewellery or valuables, an empty space that can become pregnant with whatever music or meaning I give to it," Arca told i-D in 2017. “It was important to me that it wasn't a word that already existed but rather something hollow that I could create.”

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This metaphorical jewelry box was important for me to replicate— a visual representation of Arca's personally crafted identity, filled with items indicative of her artistic spirit.

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The mutant symbol, stamped into the seal of this letter, is one of Arca’s own creation and includes elements of the transgender symbol. As the quote entails, Arca's artist name was invented for autonomy, so that she could give herself whatever meaning she created. 

 

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Arca, or Alejandra Ghersi, takes inspiration from her hometown in her songwriting and producing, specifically in vocal technique. Tonadas, a style of Venezuelan folk singing present in Arca’s haunting vocals are fused with Reggaeton, techno, and pop beats to establish a sound that is uniquely and distinctively Arca. Tackling topics of queerness and isolation in conjunction with immigration, moving to the eastern United States with her family at a young age, Arca’s songs carry an audible weight. 

 

“Spanish is the language my parents fought in and they got divorced in,” Arca stated in a 2017 press release for her eponymous album, “It’s the language I witnessed family violence in. The ultimate theatre of emotion, when things fall apart, for me isn’t English.”

 

In 2022, Arca’s box overflows with success not just in a conventional sense, as a Grammy-nominated artist gracing Bottega Veneta campaigns, Loewe advertisements, and walking for Proenza Schouler at Paris Fashion Week, but in maintaining a rigorous and unapologetic sense of identity. Music videos like "Nonbinary," "@@@@@," and "Rakata," animated by Frederik Hayman, embody Arca’s identity as a musician contextualized in alienistic, futuristic realms that question boundaries of not only gender but humanity—an actualized sci-fi vision reminiscent of Arca’s fashion icon Aeon Flux. 

 

“Now I’m coming full circle to finding pleasure in fashion,” Arca told Vogue in 2019. “It really helped me work through and reach certain acceptances within myself. I started wearing heels way before I dared to even allow myself to ask for hormones.”

 

Before the runway shows and designer campaigns, Arca was dressing up and frequenting clubs in New York City as a college student. It was at an NYC underground club GHE20G0TH1K that she met Shayne Oliver while he performed an electronic DJ set. Oliver soon took on Arca as an early intern for his brand, Hood by Air—for Arca, style and music have always been intrinsically intertwined. Arca’s personal style plays with the idea of gore juxtaposed by softer items like feminine lingerie. Arca described her style to Vogue as “mutant kawaii,” a term she invented that is “thieving and has bloodlust and wants to eat entrails nonstop for centuries. I just let this creature shape-shift at its own pace without punishing or shaming any of its impulses and instincts.”

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Live performances are enhanced by extravagant costuming, innovative sound equipment including a synth stripper pole instrument, theatrical monologues and set design—staples in Arca’s theatre that create a tangible image of the glitchy graphics seen in music videos, or imagined while listening to her techno music. Arca’s DJ sets are genreless and collaborative, often featuring her own unreleased music combined with pop songs, like her haunting mashup of Beyoncé’s “End of Time” at Ibiza C2C Festival, or technology—using AI to generate 100 versions of “Riquiquí.” 

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Arca’s figurative jewelry box spills over with grace, beauty, and an efflorescent presence that is undoubtedly and uniquely Arca.