Photos from ‘The Chapess’: A Feminist Punk Zine for 2014

If you really sat down and tried, you could turn a lot of pages in the space of 30
days. While we’ve spent over a decade providing you with about 120 of those pages every month, it turns out there are many more magazines in the world other than VICE. This new series,
Ink Spots, is a helpful guide on which of those zines, pamphlets and publications you should be reading when you’re not staring at ours.

The Chapess was started in Summer 2011 by Zara Gardner and Cherry Styles: two hardened feminists and old school zinesters who took submissions from their students at a rural art college in Manchester. Cherry says she also wanted the Chapess to be a platform to champion some of the amazing female writers she’d had been introduced to through running zine distro Synchronise Witches, a DIY publication that spoke to young women in a format that was accessible and trusted.

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Photo by Emily Tulett

Each issue of the Chapess showcases the work of women of all ages from around the world, employing an open submission policy and underlining the need for opportunities for female artists to show their essays, photography and art – particularly those who have not taken a route of education or training which had otherwise encouraged them to do so. The Chapess motto is: “Creative expression is not gendered, but confidence can be.”

Issue six launches tonight with a photo exhibition at Doomed Gallery in Dalston. “The exhibition has actually started to feel like the show I’ve been curating in my head since I was a teenager,” says Cherry. “I’m in the position to be surrounded by incredible, creative women making work, having a laugh and supporting one another – which is the punkest thing ever, right?”

Check out some of the photos from the show below and pick up an advance copy of issue six here.

@thechapesszine

@MillyAbraham

Cherry Styles

Grace Denton

Chloe Sugden

Cherry Styles

Grace Denton

Jane Chardiet

Kelly Surdo

Alexis Gross

Molly Matalon

Sofia Baca

Miyako Bellizzi

Alba Yruela

Alexis Gross

Sahar Gilani