Assume Nothing

Sydney Star Observer
Thursday 30 September 2004
Bodies in Motion

ASSUME NOTHING, A NEW BOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHY BY REBECCA SWAN, CAPTURES BEAUTY BEYOND THE BINARY OF MALE AND FEMALE. TIM BENZIE TAKES A LOOK.

In the late 19 th century an eccentric named Eadweard Muybridge became world-famous for photographing animals and human beings in motion. Arguably his greatest discovery was proving when horses were at full gallop, there were moments when all four legs were off the ground. The capturing of fluid movement in a series of snapshots – Muybridge's thousands of images taken within fractions of a second of each other – helped scientists better understand our bodies and subsequently ourselves. But what happens when the human bodies in view are fluid even when stationary? It's a question that's at the heart of a new book of photographic portraits by Rebecca Swan, appropriately titled Assume Nothing . It's both a warning and an instruction, as Swan's subjects include transgender and intersex people, as well as fa'afafine and gender illusionists.

The book is firstly inspiring, with images accompanied by the subjects' own words. Many of the 25 subjects are also familiar faces, and include Norrie May-Welby, Carmen, Georgina Beyer, even New York drag king Dred Gerestant.Dred writes: “I am a woman who likes to describe my selves as many things. Some of those things are multi-spirited, gender-illusioning, Haitian-American, fluid, antioppression, self-expressed, ancestorsupported, Goddess, and blessed.” Australian drag queen “Mark” is quoted saying: “People get so afraid of difference that they forget to see the same; that we're all human beings. Humour cuts across that.” The book is also an intelligent blend of content and form, as Swan is not content with capturing biological evidence of difference with a cool anthropological edge. Bodies are captured in blurred motion, individuals are posed in a variety of dragged genders, and in the case of Swan's most recognisable image Collision

(1997) , two forms are pasted together in a startling pan-gendered collage. Theorist Roland Barthes, who didn't think photography could be art, suggested the photograph itself was “always invisible”, and that it is only the subject matter that we remember. “The referent adheres,” he wrote. The referent sticks in Assume Nothing , although the photography also brings into beautiful sharp relief genders that may, paradoxically, remain sublimely “out of focus”.

Photofile, Australia Spring 2004
Swan presents a black and white photo essay celebrating those who define themselves as transgendered or transsexual, those "whose gender is uncertain, fluid and challenging".  Her portraits, depending on a rapport and trust between subject and photographer, revel in this fluidity.?Over two dozen individuals participated in this project and have done so with pride.  As Judith "Jack" Halberstam perceptively notes in an introductory essay, "the bodies collected here, in an archive of predominantly queer life, are celebrated and applauded for their splendid and courageous refusal of certainty".

The New Zealand Herald 21 August 2004
A Different Kind of Courage – Extraordinarily moving, this lovely book is a black and white photographic exploration of ‘experience of gender across cultures, nations and generations', including several NZ subjects (Swan herself is an Aucklander). Check your own ‘primal reactions to difference' (as Mani, a hermaphrodite, puts it). No one could read this book without being stunned at the courage with which many of these transgendered people live their lives. Swan's photos appear very much a partnership with their subjects, revealing with great grace and honour, the particular humanity, as well as considerable style, of these people of fluid gender.

Out in Perth Dec 2004
Challenging judgments that so often originate in fear of difference, Rebecca Swan celebrates gender fluidity. Like her previous book, "The Big C, my experience with cancer" her sensitivity shines through. The reader should certainly "assume nothing" and be prepared to have all the traditional constraints of gender challenged as they read and enjoy the photographs of this quality book.

Express Newspaper, New Zealand
January 2000
By David Herkt

Rebecca Swan's work is achieving a popular currency. You do know her images even if you think you might not. A Swan photograph showing Queer Nation's Libby Magee with Kate England in intimate tete-a-tete was cover of the November issue of British glossy lesbian-mag DIVA. Her androgynous cigarette smoker featured on last year's Hero Movie Festival poster. Her work is being picked up for book covers. Her first book The Big C had associated exhibitions in both New Zealand and Australia and now she's working on a second.

But in the summery dimness at the back of the closed gallery I'm thinking to myself that having two ten or eleven year old girls looking at this nude portrait of another woman is probably a healthy thing for them. It bears no resemblance to the simpering fuck-me style of traditional nudes of women which they are probably used to seeing, even at that age. I'm also beginning to consider that I'd probably trust Rebecca to take my photograph. This is an odd thought for me because I hate getting my photo taken.

"I like the intimate concentrated exchange, the one-on-one, between my models and I," she said. I had already noted that on her pricing list for portraiture commissions she is careful to schedule a period of time for the photographer and model to get to know each other. "It's important for us" her brochure reads "to discuss potential images, build up a trust. My work is about people and gender and sexuality," she said as I gazed at the gallery walls. And looking around, Swan's work is definitely based on a queer aesthetic. It is something that hits you immediately. It's something that would feel familiar to you as a gay, lesbian or transgendered person. It's like you know her work from the inside, from your inside.

"It's an aesthetic response to sexuality," but she is careful to qualify her statement. "I want to produce something that reflects our sexuality rather than displaying it for open slather to the general public. I keep on checking myself on whether my images are exploitative or not." I'm also in the process of deciding that Rebecca Swan is a moral person. I guess some people, looking at her nude studies, her explorations of androgeneity and some of her more intimate work, might disagree. But in conversation, she comes across as someone who values an integrity that she has discovered within herself. She also values her relationships with those she photographs and she is careful of them. Listening to Swan make distinctions between "reflecting and presenting" sexual images is also interesting. After all I am a gay male, having grown up in one of the most sexualised communities in the world, where pornography is just moving wallpaper in clubs. But then lesbians have to deal with images that are produced for the consumption of heterosexual males. Gay men have never had to look at themselves presented erotically for the consumption of heterosexuals. I can see how this could affect your work as an artist if you are dealing with sexual themes. I could also see how it could lead to a whole morality of approach.

Swan is working on her second book, Assume Nothing and she points to one image of fingers and shadows and nippled flesh. "It's hard to find erotica that works for us. I wanted this image to work erotically for women," she commented. "But it only works erotically if you have ever had lesbian sex. Like your experience of fingers. Looking at it from outside doesn't work in the same way." Her work is about breaking down the distinctions of gender. Her images of the Rosa Pacifica Millennium Queen competition in Otara are a case in point, some of which are far removed from the usual images a drag competition produces. "I like discovering the theatre of people", she had commented in another context. But Swan's theatre is not superficial glitz. Crouching on the floor of the gallery's disordered back room, I am faced with images of contestants in that competition that stare back at me and reveal the implacable otherness of another human being's life. But there also is an inexpressible tenderness there as well. We talk about drag for a bit and she talks about North American Indians and the 'two spirit people' where individuals can have one side of their hair long and feminine and the other side short and masculine. "I'm interested in cultures that aren't condemnatory of sexual difference, where intersexuality is revered. Where people are not forced to chop off bits of themselves to conform."

She points to the way Pacific Island culture includes it's fa'afafine and fukalaite within the community. "It's interesting seeing them with in their own culture with grandmothers, family and kids all enjoying the performance." A mother and her young daughter peer in the gallery window. They can't see us, sitting in the back of the gallery, and it's fascinating watching their reactions and the way they examine the work that they can see.Exposure gallery is a short-time gallery. It's just there for the next month. "I like having this space", Swan says "because it's putting our images of ourselves out there to everyone who walks past. Sometimes just having a gay audience is preaching to the converted. I think it's much more powerful to me that straight people can look at it and learn"

A cell phone call interrupts her sentence and for a moment I participate in her organisation of a supermarket-shopping list with her partner. As soon as she stops the call she comes right back at me as if she has been holding the thought.
"But that's not the sole purpose of my work," she says firmly, looking at me with an air of challenge. And it isn't. Sure her work might display a queer aesthetic to the world, but far, far more Rebecca Swan cares about people and she is fascinated by them. She has a knack of observation and the ability to translate what she sees into an image. And she is tender with this gift. I'd trust her to take my portrait.

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The Big C

Marie Claire, Italy
July 1998
By Sandy Auriti
"Extraordinary people" (written in Italian)

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Sydney Morning Herald
August 13 1997
By Melissa Sweet

An outsider can never really know what it is like for a young person to be diagnosed with cancer, but Ms Rebecca Swan, with help from her camera, has provided powerful glimpses from her own experiences.In a confronting new book combining photographs and diary extracts, Ms Swan, 28, describes the fear, hate and power she discovered after being diagnosed with cancer almost six years ago.The Big C: My Experience with Cancer, and two other new books form part of a cancer literary and art exhibition launched last night at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Ms Swan, an Auckland based photographer and fine arts student, has been clear of lymphoma for more than four years after chemotherapy and radiation treatment. In Sydney yesterday, she said she, initially could not look at her self-portraits, which seemed "too close to the bone".But the photographs and their compilation, first into a travelling exhibition in England and then into the book, became part of her therapy. "It was like purging the anger, frustration and fear"

Ms Swan wrote three years after finishing treatment, that the disease had enabled her to have a taste of the link between mind body and soul. "I do feel a disturbing fondness- not for the disease itself- but for the relationship I had with myself at that time. I had the time and the need to practice techniques that tuned my mind and body together."

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