The acclaimed photobook National Anthem, soon to be available in an expanded edition, is far from American photographer and film-maker Luke Gilford’s first rodeo.
Gilford’s father was a rodeo champion and member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association, although it wasn’t until 2016 that son Luke discovered a queer subculture within rodeo, focused on the International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA).
It was only then that Gilford, whose work has appeared in New York Times, Vanity Fair and Vogue, found a place for himself within the rodeo family. Over a four-year period, he documented LGBTQ+ cowboy and cowgirl communities in North America, celebrating both the diverse riders and wranglers he met and the glittering iconography of queer rodeo style.
Gilford says, “The rodeo … is a wash for the senses: peaks of pastel geographies, sunsets, adrenaline, courtship, sounds and smells of animals, sweat, blood, barbecue, denim, hairspray, alcohol, skin, and dirt. It is the West’s traditional form of drag performance.
“As I grew older, however, I became aware of just how homophobic the mainstream rodeo can be. Rural America, as an ideal, is by and large a patriarchal, Christian and white domain – still hostile to anything that is not that. Growing up as ‘other’ in rural or suburban America is to live with constant threats of violence and pressure to conform. One learns how to disappear.
“Finding the IGRA felt like uncovering a shining beacon of exception – a caveat to the rural standard. The queer rodeo is a safe space for anyone on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, including allies and supporters. Participants often travel hundreds of miles to be there since most live in communities without resources or opportunities for queer people to connect with one another.
“After my first few trips to IGRA rodeos, what I felt was not just a sense of acceptance, but the electric charge of belonging.”
Since National Anthem was first issued in 2020, Gilford has written and directed a fiction feature film with the same title, telling the story of a 21-year-old construction worker in New Mexico who joins a community of queer rodeo performers. The film was released in America to positive reviews in July 2024.
All images from National Anthem by Luke Gilford, published in the UK and Ireland, October 2024, by Damiani Books.
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