This is what trans-masculinity in nature looks like.

Title: This is what trans-masculinity in nature looks like. See all items with this value
Description: This photo is part of my series "Queering Nature: The Landscape of Queer & Trans Masculinity" which is is an imagination of the symbiotic relationship between queerness and nature as it offers a means to liberation—liberation of the erotic, the body, sexuality, and the gender binary. There is a permission to desire and be desired, without shame. Historically, nature has been framed within a cis, straight white male eye—what we like to call the “hetero masculine eye.” Throughout visual culture, men have sought to “conquer” nature, by means of an American, Western Manifest Destiny. Cis, heterosexual manhood in the wilderness has been visualized by means of control, power, and domination. My work challenges these notions of cis, hetero-masculinity by visualizing queer utopias in which queer and trans people breathe within nature’s ecosystem. Here, queers coexist in symbiosis.

The inspiration behind this body of work, and much of my art, comes from personal explorations of masculinity, gender, and queerness. I am intrigued by how these concepts intersect and how art-making can dream of a queer future in which queer and trans masculinities exist beyond cis-het binaries. Nature is symbolic of a queer liberation offering isolation from urban environments and freedom from gender conformity and heterosexuality. In a trans sense, nature mirrors my evolution in masculinity—a continuous cycle of transition akin to plants and trees undergoing seasonal transformations. Nature is transitory, and is always in transit, as I like to say. There is no finite end to its transition, nor mine—I think, perhaps, I and we are in a constant state of becoming. See all items with this value; This is Sophia, one of my best friends, in Joshua Tree on a road trip we embarked on for my 21st birthday. See all items with this value
Creator: Mattie Provost
gender: they/them
Access Rights: Yes

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2025 Photo Contest Exhibit

This item was submitted on March 2, 2025 by [anonymous user] using the form “Curve Photo Contest Submission” on the site “Curve Archive”: https://curvemag.omeka.net/s/curve-archive

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