Nadia Stiegman

FARM 1350 is a story birthed from the imagination and resilience of a rural trans cyborg. This photography series is based around ideas of queerness, the rural family structure, and cyborg feminism. A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway defines a ‘cyborg’ as “…a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism.” I link transgender, which is based in both social and scientific fact, with ‘cyborg’, a term of science fiction, as modern medicine now allows people to transform their bodies in amazing ways once thought limited to only science fiction.

Little research exists on queer people from rural areas especially those of the transgender perspective. FARM 1350 was created because I have not seen the intersection of both the rural and trans identity represented or discussed in detail anywhere in popular media. This series is nonlinear so the viewer is to decide how each figure or object relates to one another and the environment they’re in.

The aim is to start a conversation/investigation around the topics this project discusses, and the world these beings occupy. These images not only tell me positive stories of my past but they also imagine both fantastic, complex, and varied narratives for both rural and trans people of the future. That future is up to the viewer to create.

This entire series was shot on my family’s farm, and it was an absolute joy to direct. Collaborating on FARM 1350 with my parents has improved our relationship dramatically. I plan to continue creating work for this series, on our farm, for the foreseeable future.

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© Nadia Stiegman