Ocaña and Nazario (Part 1): Barcelona, visibility, and the body in the public space

The first part of the series begins in Barcelona.

Not because Ocaña and Nazario were born there, but because Barcelona became one of the places where they made themselves visible.

Barcelona, the street and the body

Barcelona. The end of Francoism. The Transition. Public space. Las Ramblas. Bodies that refused to be hidden. Queer people not asking politely for permission to exist.

There is something powerful about imagining that moment. Spain was moving out of a dictatorship, but freedom was not suddenly handed to everyone equally. Laws may change, but fear, shame and social control often remain in people’s bodies for much longer.

For LGBTQIA+ people, the street was not neutral. The body was not neutral. Clothes, gestures, desire, voice, femininity, masculinity, sex, humour and visibility could all become political.

• Ocaña: the body in public space

This is where José Pérez Ocaña, known as Ocaña, becomes such a fascinating and moving figure. Born in Cantillana, Seville, Ocaña moved to Barcelona in the 1970s and became closely associated with the city’s queer and countercultural life. He was a painter, performer, activist and public presence. He appeared in Las Ramblas in ways that challenged the boundaries between art, protest, religion, folklore, gender, sexuality and everyday life.

Ocaña’s body was central to his work. Not in a clean or polished way, but in a way that was alive, disruptive, theatrical and vulnerable.

He walked through Las Ramblas in dresses, mantillas and religious imagery. He played with Andalusian folklore, Catholic processions, popular devotion, nudity, humour and scandal. He turned the street into a kind of living theatre, where the boundary between art and life became almost impossible to separate.

This was not simply about “expressing himself”, although it was that too. It was also a challenge to a society that had tried to control which bodies could be seen, which desires could be named, and which lives were allowed dignity.

There is something deeply moving about that. Ocaña did not simply ask to be included. He just made his existence visible.