Chap is a mental health activist whose groundbreaking collection, Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, (Seven Stories Press) quickly became a fixture in the new mental health scene. A thought-provoking and engaging speaker, she has spoken on art, creativity, gender, and self-destruction in colleges, museums, and writing centers in the US and abroad.
She is also dedicated to creating and fostering communities elevating the marginalized experience. From her early work chronicling feminist writing communities, to her most recent work creating an alternative protest movement for Black Lives Matter, Chap is intent on gathering and amplifying activist voices.
Chap is represented by Soapbox Inc.
LIVE THROUGH THIS:
On Creativity and Self-Destruction
Edited by Sabrina Chap
A visceral look at the bizarre entanglement of destructive and creative forces, Live Through This is a collection of original stories, essays, artwork, and photography. It explores the use of art to survive abuse, incest, madness and depression, and the often deep-seated impulse toward self-destruction including cutting, eating disorders, and addiction.
These artful reflections offer an honest and hopeful journey through a woman’s silent rage, through the power inherent in struggles with destruction, and the ensuing possibilities of transforming that burning force into the external release of art.
Forward by Amanda Palmer
Contributions by: Nan Goldin, bell hooks, Margaret Cho,
Swoon, Eileen Myles, Kate Bornstein, and more.
“For women whose talents include a canny ability to self-annihilate, this book is a tonic. Read it and weep. Literally.”
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– Jennifer Baumgardner
“The Women in this collection give courageous insights and inspiration to any artist struggling with self-destruction.”
– Sara Quin
(Tegan and Sara)
“The essays and visuals that make up Live Through This plum the depths of out-of-control lives, examining how self-destruction functions as both a hindrance and a productive challenge.”
– Bitch Magazine
“A Stunning book. I found myself dreaming conversations with some of the writers . . . engaging in the conversation they begin here.”
- Dorothy Allison (Bastard Out of Carolina)
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“Live Through This delves deep into the psyches of poets, dancers, playwrights, and performers (including Patricia Smith, Eileen Myles, Kate Bornstein, and Margaret Cho) to reveal the forces that drive artists toward both passion and pain.”
- The Advocate
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"This intimate book gives you all the tools for self-emergence.”
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- Janeane Garafolo
An on-line platform created in response to the 2016 Presidential Election.
Sabrina Chap – Founder/Executive Curator
Launched on January 2nd, 2017, Letters to the Revolution is an intersectional online platform that features open letters from leading artists, activists, and allies from communities targeted by the incoming administration. Focusing on messages of survival, strength, survival, and hope, these letters will be messages in a bottle to those wondering how to survive and fight in the revolution for equality in the coming months and years.
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Contributions from: Chase Strangio (ACLU lawyer representing Chelsea Manning), Planned Parenthood (NYC), Kate Bornstein (Gender Theorist / Author: Gender Outlaw), Bill Mckibben (Founder of 350.org, author on climate change) BenDeLaCreme (Performer: RuPaul’s Drag Race), Guerilla Girls (Artists / Activists), Nelson A. Denis (Former NY State Assemblyman / Author: War Against All Puerto Ricans), Shakina Nayfack (Actress: Difficult People), James Lecense (co-founder of the Trevor Project), Nik Walker (Actor: Hamilton), Swoon (Artist), Greenpeace, Josh Radnor (Actor: How I Met Your Mother), Justin Vivian Bond (Performer), Jay Michaelson (Rabbi, and Longtime LGBTQ Activist) and many others.
AUDIO PROTEST
The death of George Floyd and the ensuing marches in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter ignited the world in June 2020. Many were unable to march safely in solidarity. In response, Sabrina created Audio Protest- a collective dedicated to providing a safe, alternative protest of joy in the days leading up to the March on Washington.
Audio Protest is an alternative protest movement for those currently unable to march for racial equality, due to COVID, fears of police brutality, immigrant status, and more.
We provide a daily playlist and livestream of a black artist for people to blast from their windows in solidarity with those marching, to show the world that the collective rage is bigger than the one they can physically point to on the streets.
We ask that you turn your speakers to the streets at 7-8 pm EST daily, put up a sign that says ‘Audio Protest’, and play ‘Audio Protest’ in solidarity with both those marching and those who’ve already lost their lives to this struggle. Audio Protest will broadcast every night up until the March on Washington on August 19th.
DEADLINE:An Evening of Works in Progress
A monthly queer performance art series dedicated to providing thoughtful critique to developing artists.
Post-Clown Disaster, Ariel Federow, and Cabaret Idiot, Sabrina Chap bring you this new works-in-progress series featuring new work from cutting-edge queer artists. Built on the notion that there’s no greater inspiration than a deadline, this series forces renegade artists to bring new and developing work to an audience for the first time. Part experimentation + part guaranteed failure = 100% awesomeness. It ran for over a year at the Bureau for General Queer Services and at NY's LGBT Center.
Bureau for General Queer Services | LGBT Center
CLITERATURE: 18 Interviews with Women* Writers
Book Length Zine chronicling the feminist writing scene gathered for Ladyfest (SF)
From the Isle of Sappho to Djuna Barnes’ salon, throughout the history of the written word, there have been groups of women writers coming together to form communities. Today, groups of like-minded women have been meeting across the world at Do-It-Yourself (DIY) festivals like Ladyfest. Since its inception in 2000, Ladyfest has been more than simply a festival for performance; it is a gathering of independent women artists that is helping to form new women’s communities.
Cliterature is a series of interviews with 18 current-day renegade women* writers brought together for the 2004 Bay Area Ladyfest. The women of this community have a wide range of age and experience, from 21 year-old up-and-coming hip-hop artist JenRo, to well-known sexology royal Carol Queen. Their forms of expression are equally diverse, covering genres like comic books, personal narrative, spoken word, erotica, mystery novels, and punk rock.
*anyone who’s had the experience of being a woman*
Featured in the International Museum of Women
Featured in the Minneapolis Institute of Art
(in the exhibition, Rebel voice: Inside the Fly Zine Archive, a chronicle of punk, queer, and DIY counterculture')