Rhode Island International Film Festival 2009

Many of us assume that there are only two genders and that being female or male follows from the sex of our biological bodies. Focusing on the art, photography and performances of five "alternative" gender artists Assume Nothing poses the questions: "What if "male" and "female" are not the only options? How do other genders express themselves through art?"

Fresh from the Frameline 33 Festival in San Francisco, Assume Nothing takes its title from the work of renowned New Zealand photographer Rebecca Swan’s book “Assume Nothing” (2004), which reveals an extraordinary diversity of gender identity from the Pacific region and beyond. Assume Nothing creates “living” portraits of four artists featured in Swan’s work, woven together by a portrait of Swan herself as an artist. The featured Maori, Samoan-Japanese, and Pakeha- European artists weave tales of growing up in gender identities that fall outside conventional Western definitions of masculinity and femininity. And through their paintings, performances, photographs and weavings they also tell stories of this “alternative” gender as it expresses itself now through their art.

The participants include Jack Byrne - transgender-activist and spoken word artist, and Shigeyuki Kihara, a Samoan/Japanese-born Fa’a fafine [1] working in visual and performance art disciplines. Assume Nothing travels with Shigeyuki as she mounts her solo exhibition at the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Assume Nothing explores Maori cultural gender understandings with weaver and performer Ema Lyon who identifies as “ia”, a single Maori word meaning “he-she”. The film also explores the significance of creating a positive visual iconography with intersex activist Mani Bruce Mitchell, incorporating her extensive archive of family slides with Super-8 animations to create new resonances in the family myth-making process. In collaborating with these artists to tell their stories, Assume Nothing blurs the conventions of documentary, animation and drama in a compelling and universal celebration of courage and creativity.

[1] [1] A fa’a fafine is a Samoan who is born biologically male, gifted with the spirit of a woman (and a man).