Call For Submissions

A Thousand Tiny Sexes is a print publication project that seeks to reimagine sexgender (gender and sex) as political, economic, legal, cultural, and biological categories.

We are seeking 1000 creative definitions of sexgender in text format. While definitions of sex and/or gender from dictionaries, encyclopedias and other references are interesting, that's not what we are looking for. We want you to (re)imagine sexgender and to (re)define it. We are interested in collecting definitions that come from a wide variety of perspectives and speak to the different ways that people imagine and engage with sexgender in everyday life.

We will collect submissions until we have accepted 1000 definitions. The definitions will be published as a book. Send your definitions to 1000tinysexes@gmail.com.

Why Sexgender?

This project seeks to create a collective reimagining of sexgender (gender and sex) as a biological, legal, political, economic and cultural category. We want to catalyze creative thinking about the ways that sexgender is multiple (more than just MALE and FEMALE) and the ways that sexgender is performative, embodied, durational, contextual and contingent. We want people to use the resulting publication to experiment with tiny ways to think outside of the gender box.

This is not to say that everyone can be all sexes, or that sex is a fashion choice that you can simply put on when you wake up.

You will note that we are using sexgender as one word. This is because we do not believe that the two can be distinguished in a clean, nature/nurture kind of way. Sex is always socially constructed and mutable. Gender is always embodied and biological. Sexgender is always infinitely mutable and embodied, constructed and biological in thousands of tiny ways. We welcome your thoughts about this.

For more information, visit the 1000 Tiny Sexes website.

Things That Might Have Happened Tour Video
Watch and listen to our tour and see some of the many proposals we included in our original tour kits here. To download this to an iPod, right-click (control click for macs) on the image above to download, and drag and drop the file into your iPod's movie folder. Also view our proposals and documentation here on Flickr.

click here to see the TTMHH tour video

About TTMHH
Things That Might Have Happened is an exploration of the past, present and future of the Chelsea Piers, specifically Segment 4, from Horatio Street to Clarkson Street, including the highly contested Pier 45, or the Christopher Street Pier.
As part of the Conflux festival exploring psychogeography in New York City, Richard James Supa Jr. and James Mayhew chose to explore the uses of the pier – both past and present – and how people feel about the changes being made and what, if any changes should come to the area.
Things That Might Have Happened is a self-guided audio and visual tour allowing each participant to delve into various possibilities, suggestions, ideas and thoughts on the future of the piers. The viewer/participant is even asked to suggest their own ideas as to what they believe are necessary for their enjoyment of the public space.
Over 20 new proposals were made for the area and were hand drawn on transparancy paper with a correspdonding photo beneath the drawing to act as a map to different areas in and around the pier.
Things That Might Have Happened hopes to become on ongoing discussion through the internet with space available for posts and blogging.

History
The piers near the West Village have had a great significance in the history of the GLBTTSQQ community. From the boom of the Gay Liberation movement in the late sixties to the renovation of the pier in the mid-nineties, to now, this space has always been a place that has been used primarily by certain sectors of GLBTTSQQ people. In more recent years, the pier and the immediate area around it have become a contested space, pitting the people who hang out at it and the people who live near it against each other. TTMHH will provide a tour of things that may have happened with this space, and will make proposals for use of the piers at present through a historical perspective.
Through images that are juxtaposed over the space at the speculation on what could have happened at the Christopher Street Piers from the angle of the various groups that have affected the history and use of this space. Who controls, or gains control of public space? How have the piers changed? Why? And When?

If you are interested in supporting this project, please e-mail me at jaimes dot mayhew at gmail dot com.

#1

The Story:
I moved to Boston from Seattle after working in a very large theatre as a "Patron Services" associate. I had worked in customer service for about eight years prior to this, and decided that I didn't want to work in customer service anymore. I decided to move to Boston to finish college, and hoped that I would not have to work in customer service again. This shirt used to say "Satff" on it, and I patched over the letters with an image of a deer (something that remonds me of childhood).
While I am still a "Staff" member at a Community TV Station, I hope to never have a job where I am treated as poorly as people in low-paying customer service jobs are treated. I am lucky to have had the chance to go to college, and not everyone gets the chance these days, so I feel lucky to be able to be where I am.

#2

The Story:
One day I was walking down the street with my hula hoops (they are big) and I went to cross Beacon at St. Paul to go to the T when this guy at the red light learns out of his car and yells "Look at those hoops!" I cross the street and he starts asking me questions, "How did you get those?" "What are they made out of?" The light turns green and he still sits there blocking all the traffic to ask me hula hoop related questions. It was then that I noticed that he was taking up two lanes so no one else could move. The cars start beeping their horns but the guy doesn't budge. He remained until he had gotten satisfactory answers to all of his questions, then he drove away. I looked to my right as I stood on the train platform and I noticed a man slowly giving me the finger.

Photos courtesy of James Manning

Choice Cuts was a two-night film screening produced and currated by James Mayhew and Niq Brynolfson that is dedicated to bringing experimental and underground video to the Boston area in an informal setting. We had over 100 people attend our second annual screening. Thanks for supporting experimental film!

For our second-annual event, we screened movies on August 10th at Art Interactive in Cambridge and August 11th at Somerville Community Access Television.

We are planning more Choice Cuts screenings for Spring '07, so stay tuned. If you have any questions about the screenings, you can communicate here.

About 250 flyers were scattered across Seattle with the words Call This Number, Please followed by a local voicemail number. The voicemail message gave callers a series of instructions:
1. Close your eyes, then press lightly on them.
2. Leave a message describing what you see.

The voicemails were never listened to, or counted.

The performance lasted for about one hour.

1-2) Garden Street at Massachusetts Avenue
10-12-2004, 2:30pm
Man standing on the side of a busy intersection with a cardboard sign that read “HOMELESS PLEASE HELP SPARE CHANGE THANK YOU GOD BLESS”.
He was smoking a cigarette and pacing up and down the sidewalk. People continued to drive.

1-3) Hawley & Summer Street (Au Bon Pain)
10-13-04, 4:15pm
Man pacing inside of fenced in outdoor seating area for a coffee shop. He smoked a cigar and talked loudly to himself about his rent and who he could split it with. On the ground near where he was, there was a large Store 24 bag filled with clothes and papers. Customers at the coffee shop would not look at him, but would acknowledge his existence by sitting on the other side of the outdoor seating area. In fact, all other people sat on the other half of the outdoor seating.

1-4) Park Street Station (Red Line Outbound)
10-15-04, 11:30 am
A voice coming from above on the stairway was soulfully singing “Somebody sing for me down there! Can’t you sing down there?” repeatedly. The few people in the station acted as though they did not notice.

1-5) #66 Bus
10-18-04, 9am
A man gets on the bus. It is rush hour and it is pretty full. He seems to address the people on the bus with his body language: He smiles, stands up straight, and attempts eye contact with people. He sits near the front and turns towards the back of the bus. He speaks in a voice not much louder than a normal speaking voice and says “Now normally, I don’t like to address it when someone who is drunk gets on the bus. But it does smell, and it’s pretty rude to make other people uncomfortable like that”. He then looks over the faces of the people on the bus. No one responds.

Set Two: (The non-Invisibles)

2-1) Harvard Square Station Entrance (The Pit)
10-16-2004,1pm
Kerry-Edwards campaigners handing out stickers and buttons. Some passersby would stop and talk; some would just take buttons and stickers

2-2) Brattle Street Au Bon Pain
10-17-2004, 2pm
Man performing a puppet show for the shoppers. He had three puppets, and sang children’s songs. He invited children to sing with him. He had a large audience.

2-3) Massachusetts Avenue/Harvard Square
10-16-2004, 1:15pm
Woman collecting for a grassroots campaign to “get Bush out of office”. She held a clipboard and a pen. Most people walking by said, “no, thank you”, but some did stop to talk.

2-4) Massachusetts Avenue/Harvard Square
10-16-2004, 1:15pm
Woman collecting money and talking to people about Planned Parenthood. Some people stopped to talk.

2-5) Boston Common (Tremont Side)
10-19-2004, 5pm
A group of tourists take a picture of a statue in Boston Common. The statue reflects light from the sun setting.

A collaboration with The Institute For Infinitely Small Things to resaerch things to do for free in commerial space. The video was commissioned by Lumen Eclipse, and played on thier public screens in Harvard Square in March 2006. Click on the image to watch the video.