PHANTASMATA

We’re thrilled to unveil our twentieth issue, Phantasmata, for Autumn/Winter 2025. With Phantasmata, we enter a terrain where illusion and memory intertwine — a place where the unreal takes shape and the unseen exerts its power. Rooted in the ancient Greek φάντασμα (phantasma, meaning “apparition” or “vision”), this issue examines the ghosts, myths, and fabrications that inhabit our collective imagination and shape how we see the world.

This issue sets out to trace those echoes. Where do they come from, how do they grow, what forms do they take? In our very first issue, Strange Days, we wrote: “The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast, you first must make it beautiful. If not to conquer it, then at least to make it beautiful.” We’ve been on that path ever since. The monsters haven’t given up — and neither have we.