Folklore, poetry, and artwork for all folk, by all folk. Our mission is to build a folk community that is intersectional and inclusive, that celebrates w*men, people of colour, disabled folk, queer and trans people, and migrant communities. Formed collaboratively by Eve Aspland, Bliss Ashley, Joni Brown and Alice Watkinson, we are based in London, Oxford, Devon and Chester! Folk for all, by all Folk.

Unquiet Press came about in a very organic way, as an idea that Joni and Alice had come up with whilst still at uni, then subsequently reaching out to Eve and then Bliss when realising how much work making a new publication would be was! So now there are four of us working on different aspects of the publication both online and in the very physical Risograph printing process, which is all done very lovingly by hand by Joni and Bliss.

However with three of us working full time, whilst keeping our own artistic practices and creative projects alive, and one of us in full time study, Unquiet Press is truly a labour of love, a passion project and a brilliant procrastination tool whilst we’re at work or uni!

We each have our own personal connections to folklore, but what unites these interests is our collective belief that Folk’s relevance today is as a mouthpiece to promote intersectional voices, particularly those less heard in mainstream media and to push against far-right and nationalistic ideas of identity. As a queer and state school educated group, we are interested in practices from artists and writers whose work celebrates these ideas. By looking backwards at traditional and regional customs, not just in the UK, as Folk extends throughout cultures, we learn how we have always been tied to the land and ecologies that we live amongst. Folk is not archaic or dead, it is the way in which we both unite as humans and connect to our surroundings. 

PEOPLE