Collected Item: “This is what trans-masculinity in nature looks like.”
Your Name
Mattie Provost
Your Pronouns
they/them
[Eligibility] The Curve Photo Contest proudly centers and uplifts people who identify as lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer women and nonbinary people. Please share how you self-identify, using language that feels most accurate to you. Feel free to include all intersections of your identity. (Examples: lesbian, trans person of color, Latinx queer woman, radical faery, butch, etc.)
This is what trans-masculinity in nature looks like.
[Artist Statement] Tell us more about your photo by sharing a brief artist statement OR answering this prompt: "This is what being ______ means to me..." (Max. 100 words)
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.
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.
[Visual Description] Describe your photo so we can provide alt-text. Example: "Two women holding hands and smiling as they walk in a pride parade, surrounded by rainbow flags."
This is Sophia, one of my best friends, in Joshua Tree on a road trip we embarked on for my 21st birthday.
[Agreement] Do you consent to The Curve Foundation storing, sharing, and using this image and its description as we deem appropriate, including disseminating on our social media, website, and Curve Archive and Curve Quarterly?
Yes
Instagram handle, if any
maddieprovost2.0
[Agreement] By checking 'I understand' below, I acknowledge that this contest upholds values of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and I confirm that my submission does not contain anti-LGBTQ+ or other discriminatory, hateful, or exclusionary content.
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