For my dissertation, I interviewed Beth Dunne, creator of Cherry Mag, via email. It was interesting hearing what she thought about diversity within her own zine Cherry, and mainstream feminism as a whole. While I did this for my dissertation research, it fits in well with the issues of lack of diversity within feminism that I'm exploring within my practical work.
JASMIN HARBORD: What sparked your
desire to start a zine?
BETH DUNNE: I’m part of the
Rookie generation, I was spending a lot of time on tumblr and reading a lot of
blogs and books on being a teenager and still being important - I think it all
started from there. I was starting to find my voice, artistically and
politically as well as personally and I was so desperate to do something with
it. I sent submissions off to blogs and was writing for the feminist film blog
Screenqueens but it didn’t seem to be enough - I was 16 and I’d dropped out of
school, so I needed somewhere to put all this excess creative energy. I have
talented friends and family and there will never be enough feminist collectives
out there, so when those thoughts came together that’s when Cherry was born.
JH: What
was your first experience with zines? How did you hear about them?
BD: I
think I must have first heard about zines through tumblr, it was a gold mine
during my riot grrl stage of teenagehood. I thought (and still do think) that
they’re amazing: a completely free-form collection of images, ideas, art and
words that doesn’t have the pressure of being ‘good enough’ to get a good grade
or sell well.
JH: Would
you say 'Cherry' could be classed as a feminist zine? If so, why? And if not,
why not?
BD: It’s
definitely a feminist zine, because in my opinion feminism is about bringing
forward voices that aren’t necessarily always heard and I aimed to do that with
Cherry. I wanted to showcase work that might have been looked over if it had
been submitted to a non-feminist zine, and create a platform where expression
has no boundaries. It was important to
me for everyone to feel like they were deserving of having their opinions and
voices listened to.
JH: Why
did you chose to distribute 'Cherry' purely via online//web-based means?
BD: At
first it was because I wasn’t sure many people would read Cherry, so I didn’t
want to take a big risk by printing all these zines that nobody really wants to
buy. It was also a financial issue - I didn’t have the money to pay for
printing and we didn’t have a big enough name for ourselves to start a
fundraiser that would be noticed or paid much attention to. People don’t want
to donate to something that might not be worth it in the end! Then as we
started picking up more followers, I realised it probably would be possible to
print Cherry, but in doing so would it make it seem inaccessible? The driving force
behind the zine was that it was a free space powered by a joint passion for
creativity, and by monetising the situation it could have meant that we became
more concerned with profit and saleability as opposed to just celebrating
diversity and creativity. I was also aware of our audience: young people who
may not necessarily have the money themselves to buy a magazine that we would
have had to sell at quite a high price in order to break even. I preferred to
keep it simple and free to read, so that all you needed to be part of it was
access to a computer.
JH: Would
you have considered producing a tangible print run of 'Cherry'? If so, why?
What would have been the benefits? What stopped you?
BD: I
answered most of this question in the previous answer, but I suppose one of the
benefits of physically printing Cherry is that it would have felt more concrete
and real to me - maybe I would have been more organised and driven if printing
was involved, but maybe the zine would have lost it’s unique DIY charm and
become something other than what it had grown to be on the internet.
JH: In
your opinion, did the web and technology help or hinder the creation of
‘Cherry'?
BD: The
internet helped Cherry immensely. So much so that I can confidently say it
wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t had the internet and technology. The
inspiration came from online things like tumblr and Rookie; contacting artists
and potential contributors was very easy; things like gathering feedback was
crucial to the development of Cherry and we were able to do that through the
Issuu statistics and social media. Without photo editing software and Microsoft
Publisher, the zine physically would not have been possible to make - so I owe
technology and the internet a lot.
JH: The
internet allows for almost instantaneous contact with people from around the
world, each from different backgrounds, cultures and social norms. Do you feel
you received work from a range of people or from a specific group?
BD: At
first I was concerned with the diversity of contributors, as a lot of the
contributors were my friends from England and I wanted to reach beyond that. I
contacted creatives from other countries, people that I admired and wanted to
work with, and as Cherry developed we reached more and more countries. We had
contributors from the States, Norway, Poland, and more, which was important to
making this a more universally relatable project. I didn’t want to limit the
contributors to one specific group of people, so I was constantly thinking of
if we were doing enough to include and represent a diverse group of
individuals. There’s an issue in feminism today where it’s too focused on
white, straight, cis-gendered women, and that’s not the feminism I identify
with, nor did I want to be responsible for a publication that supported that
idea.
JH: Did
you have a method for choosing the sorts of work that were included in
'Cherry'? If so could you speak about it a little bit?
BD: There
was never really a specific method for selecting work, it was usually just
‘does it fit the theme?’, ’does it reflect well on Cherry?’ and sometimes ‘do
we have space for this?’. I had to be very careful with some pieces that they
couldn’t be perceived as offensive, taken the wrong way, or have the potential
to alienate some of our readers or make them feel uncomfortable. If the piece
was good overall, but could have done with some changes to make it more
politically correct, I would email the contributor to ask if it was possible to
edit. For example, I received a beautiful photoset from a regular contributor,
but the models were white females who were wearing bindis. I had to tell the
photographer that this wouldn’t be accepted within Cherry, so they would either
have to change this or remove their contribution completely.
I had a group of
permanent contributors, who would send in work when they had it or they would
make work specifically for the current theme, and they would generally make it
into the issue - these contributors were permanent because they were reliable
in consistently producing work that fit well in Cherry. Submissions from
outside the group of permanent contributors were also put into the zine more
often than not, but sometimes they weren’t always the right fit. In this case I
would email the person who sent the submission telling them to keep trying but
we just couldn’t find a suitable space for their work this time around.
JH: And lastly, do you think zine culture is still relevant in today's
society? Is it important? Please expand.
BD: Zine culture is both relevant and important - it is essential that we
keep building platforms for the unheard people to be heard. Zines are an
accessible way of sharing work, ideas and opinions and we as young people,
women, LGBTQ+ members, people of colour, minorities in general, are constantly
in need of that boost, both personally and politically. They’re a great way to
create community and safe spaces for people who might not have that anywhere
else. We need to keep supporting each other and working together, and zines are
an excellent way of doing this.
