The participants range in age from twenty to sixty. They are Haitian American, Samoan New Zealander, Maori, European Australian, Aboriginal, and African English. They are gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, and pansexual. In terms of gender, they are transsexuals, gender queers, eunuchs, sister girls, drag kings and queens, and the alternative gender roles traditional to Maori and Samoan cultures.
In their blurring of boundaries, Swan's images ask readers to examine their assumptions--and even, at moments, their own sexuality. They reveal the harm that results from forcing living bodies to conform to preexisting roles and capture a deeper reality of struggle, uncertainty, and process. Above all, they point the way to the creation of a new vocabulary of gender and a world of increased tolerance where, when it comes to gender, nothing is assumed.
For over twenty years her work has been published, exhibited and collected in Aotearoa and internationally. She won the S+ART award and in 2018 completed the Fulbright-Wallace Art Residency.
"Not only does Rebecca Swan provide us with a timely and evocative motto for the 21st century, she does it with style and panache. Assume Nothing shows us what it looks like when theory is put into practice with love and considerable skill." --Del LaGrace Volcano, gender variant visual artist and activist
"These images can literally take your breath away! Rebecca Swan's photos virtually pulse with the dynamic spirits of unrestrained genders: all things are possible. The brave and tender hearts bared here display your own humanity." --Jamison Green, author of Becoming a Visible Man