TOLD Magazine, Padua (2025)

29/01/2025

🖋 The eighth edition of our collaborative newsletter, ForeTOLD, is here!

This issue explores who controls urban space and the struggles for the right to the city. From forced displacement to grassroots movements reclaiming public spaces, we highlight the fight for more just, inclusive, and liveable cities!

Inside, you’ll find projects, insights, and testimonies from Italy to Brazil, China to the UK, uncovering how cities are shaped by power, resistance, and collective action. All of these stories are shared by our readers and writers across the world—we’re always open to contributions!

If you missed this newsletter and want to receive it, contact us via private message and subscribe at https://toldmagazine.org/subscribe, where you can also download past editions.

12/01/2025

🗞 We made a zine!

We’re so excited to announce the launch of our very first zine, a collaborative project based on our recent workshop on the theme of home. Here you can see a little preview, and you can find the full work on our website: https://toldmagazine.org/pub/what-does-home-mean-for-you/

What does home mean to you? A place, a feeling, a memory? For some, it’s safety and warmth. For others, it’s a dream of inclusion and belonging. During the workshop, we shared stories, created art, and explored the concept of home in all its forms. We loved the experience so much that together we decided to gather it all in this special publication.

This zine is a collection of reflections, collages, and creative expressions that capture the joy, longing, and resilience that define our various relationships with whatever it is that we call home. It’s a celebration of our shared humanity, made by the community, for the community.

30/12/2024

Our next stop is Košice, east Slovakia, where we find the urbanist collective Spolka, changing attitudes and transforming cities. A collective of friends that now work to build genuine partnerships between architecture, urban planning, and the public, Spolka is one of the only voices in the country pushing for inclusive architecture and sustainable cities, without leaving out vulnerable groups like the working class, and the Roma people. Following the 2023 Never Never School, run by Spolka as an interdisciplinary project of imagination and investigation, we met Lýdia Grešáková, a sociologist and founding member, to discuss their work, the role of co-creation and urbanism in Eastern Europe, and the issues facing small organisations in the post-Soviet world.

https://toldmagazine.org/articles/co-creation-and-inclusive-architecture-in-east-slovakia/

19/12/2024

✒️ The seventh edition of our collaborative newsletter, ForeTOLD, is here!
Our latest edition explores land grabbing, a theme we documented in Ghana in our previous article, but here we take themes of land exploitation, food sovereignty and territorial control, collecting experiences and contributions from our readers and writers across the world. Inside, you’ll find projects, insights, and testimonies from Chile to the Philippines, Canada to Afghanistan, exploring the unjust seizure of land by powerful groups, and the ongoing resistance movements that are fighting them.

If you missed this newsletter and wish to receive it, please contact us via private message and subscribe to the next ones on our website https://toldmagazine.org/subscribe/, where you can also download our previous editions.

04/12/2024

Our latest instalment continues our art and illustration series, with Greta’s interpretation “My Body.”
“Exploring our body is not an easy job, sometimes it appears as an unknown territory and others as a familiar place. Maybe we will never get to know every corner of it, but with the help of ourselves and other people we can see this as an opportunity.
As a woman myself I felt that my body was not mine a lot of times, doing these drawings helped me to narrate the process (still not over) of self-discovery.”
To contribute to this series, or to propose an idea for a future series, in the form of drawing, painting, poetry, photography, or whichever form of media you practice, get in touch at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

25/11/2024

Unearthing the Truth: The Impact of Land Grabbing on Communities in Ghana.

Battles are raging beneath our feet, over the right to stay in your home and work your land. With multinational corporations desperate to accumulate territory and resources, communities in Ghana are tackling the ongoing menace of land grabbing, companies seeking to seize ownership of land by any means necessary, regardless of who already lives there. These deals are carried out far from public eyes and with swift and violent enforcement.
Farmers, activists, community leaders and youth groups have been working together to fight against the theft of their land and their livelihoods, and while the scale of the problem is enormous, grassroots movements are still able to make a difference. In this article, Ellen Onyina talks to the leader of one of these movements, and explores the ways that Ghanaian communities can hold on to their roots.

https://toldmagazine.org/articles/unearthing-the-truth-the-impact-of-land-grabbing-on-communities-in-ghana/

17/11/2024

We now announce our newsletter archive officially 🎉open! ForeTOLD, our collaborative newsletter, accompanies our articles, taking local examples and connecting these to experiences felt by our writers and readers from all over the world.
https://toldmagazine.org/newsletter-archive/
All of our previous editions can be found here, including our latest publication, “Art Deco(lonial)”, a tour of artistic expressions of postcolonial and decolonial culture. Music, literature, dance, street art, all play their parts in strengthening local voices and offering alternatives to the cultures of domination left by colonial and neocolonial powers. We hope you enjoy!

15/11/2024

Thank you to everyone that came to our workshop this Wednesday, and to all those that could not attend but helped make it possible! Coming together around the theme of “home”, we designed and produced our own zines using writing, drawing, collage and painting, publication (in the spirit of self-printed and autonomously distributed materials) soon to follow!
For more examples of place-based narration of local development and community-based practices, our article archive is always growing, and we’re always open to new writers, artists and contributors from inside and outside the university, from anywhere in the world! Check out our manifesto and get in touch here or at [email protected] to get involved!

06/11/2024

📰 Are you ready to bring your vision to life?

Join us for a zine-making workshop where we will explore the creative process behind this unconventional self-publishing tool. Starting from a common theme, we will focus on storytelling, self-expression and creativity to bring out the real potential of your stories. Whether you’re a seasoned artist or a curious beginner, this is your space to create something raw and real!

If you are interested, sign up by scanning the QR code, or filling in the Google Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScu2VEXXjYuJ8KQcNCeSxqy0Gr2wiUYe92ETULsK3WiJzFMDg/viewform

27/10/2024

It’s not just land that is broken, but more importantly, our relationship to land - R.W. Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

The idea that we are separated from nature is the deepest wound of Western culture - a culture that has the illusion of building barriers between humans and the natural world, often even fostering the idea of superiority. This mindset has enabled the relentless, unsustainable exploitation of the earth, stripping it of its living essence and reducing it to lifeless objects, to be controlled, consumed, and commodified.
Yet, as the concept of Cuerpo-Territorio (“Body-Territory”, a research method rooted in Latin American critical geography) teaches us, there is an unbreakable bond between the body and the land; what happens to one also happens to the other. For women this bond runs deep, as patriarchy and capitalism have built systems that mirror the exploitation of the earth with the subjugation of women’s bodies, treating both as resources to be consumed. For Indigenous peoples, the rupture has been even more violent, as colonialism not only ruthlessly extracted material wealth from the land, but also severed the profound cultural and spiritual relationships that have long sustained communities and ways of life.

If you want to know more, we’ll explore Cuerpo-Territorio and other decolonial practices in our next newsletter.
💬To contribute to our illustrated series, or to propose an idea in the form of drawing, painting, poetry, photography, or whichever form of media you practice, get in touch at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

25/10/2024

On Monday the 28th of October, 21:00 CET, TOLD will be holding our general meeting, to welcome both young and old writers, readers, editors, and storytellers to our magazine, and explore the next steps for working together. All places, stories, experiences, are worth listening to – check out our manifesto online, and if you’d be interested in sharing your tale, contributing to the editing group, or just seeing how TOLD works, sign up with the link below!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdMY8C88RUT8TGT2yXTPFrUdB8GjXih2NbdRuRY9M-FG8tiUA/viewform?usp=sf_link

19/10/2024

Have you ever thought about the relationship between the ideas of boundaries, identity and belonging, and the lasting effects of colonialism? In this article by Ana Gabriela Fontoura and Luiza Munhoz, we take you on board the artist CamilLa Pontiggia’s reflections on the topic, her being both an observer and part of these processes.

Coming from Italy but growing up in South Africa, Camilla drives us to think about our responsibility in the uncomfortable, constant and necessary work of decolonization. Her interview, held after her exhibition in the Museum of Geography at the University of Padova, takes a slow and sensitive approach to constructive decolonial work.

https://toldmagazine.org/articles/the-uncomfortable-constant-and-necessary-work-of-decolonization/

As ever, we invite all readers that feel a connection to the article to get in touch and contribute their experiences and ideas to the collaborative newsletter that follows these pieces - you can contact us here or at [email protected]

14/10/2024

Ciao! Interested in place-based journalism? Do you have a story to tell or a place you'd like to explore? Lets get together for an aperitivo! Get to know TOLD - Tales of Local Development, a magazine founded by students and committed to telling stories all around the world about grassroots-centred community action!

If you're a world famous journalist or if you've never picked up a pen before, we'd love to meet you at Hera Hora, Thursday the 17th of October at 18.30. See you there!

08/10/2024

✒️ The fifth edition of our collaborative newsletter, ForeTOLD, is here!

This edition follows on from our article about overtourism in Venice, and explores the ways that tourism and consumption can affect a space, based on contributions from our readers and writers. Inside, you’ll find projects, insights, and testimonies from around the world, talking about how we can genuinely share a place between residents and tourists, based on sincerity, respect, and curiosity.

If you missed this newsletter and wish to receive it, please contact us via private message and subscribe to the next ones on our website https://toldmagazine.org/subscribe/

24/08/2024

exotic terrestrial
I would always find it unsettling whenever someone would describe me as “exotic.” But I would just laugh it off and blame it on a lack of creativity. However, I finally got what the word meant when I myself had a brush with the ‘exotic,’ in a cold, mostly blonde, predominantly white country in Northern Europe.
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Rina Araneta’s art work shows another perspective of the ‘exotic,’ continuing the themes that we explored with Zhu Haipeng’s article on China, and our newsletter on exoticism. You can find the full comic on our website.

💬To contribute to our illustrated series, or to propose an idea in the form of drawing, painting, poetry, photography, or whichever form of media you practice, get in touch at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

02/08/2024

✒️ The fourth edition of our collaborative newsletter, ForeTOLD, is here!

This edition focuses on Orientalism, cultural stereotypes, appropriation and storytelling, following our article “There is No Fortune Cookie in China”. Inside, you’ll find projects, insights, and testimonies submitted by our contributors!

If you missed this newsletter and wish to receive it, please contact us via private message and subscribe to the next ones on our website https://toldmagazine.org/subscribe/

22/07/2024

Continuing our comic series, the fourth instalment is Greta’s interpretation: “Plenty of Homes”.

“Some days ago I saw the profile of my English teacher, Prof. Ana Bessa Carvalho, who I had the pleasure to have as a professor and friend. She posted a frame of a book in which this sentence was written. Finding a house in this precarious word that leaves us homeless if we are not as productive as they want us to be is very difficult, and finding a home is difficult too. But maybe it is easier, because we can find at home in the company of another person and in the company of ourselves.
This sentence of Bryan Washington, present in the drawing, reflects on this, and on how we can be our own homes, having a chimney that smokes and encounter chimneys of other people in life. We will all change, and with us also our idea of home – what is important is to leave the door open.”

To contribute to this series, or to propose an idea for a future series, in the form of drawing, painting, poetry, photography, or whichever form of media you practice, get in touch at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

07/07/2024

What does a local culture look like from the outside? How do stereotypes play into our ideas of diaspora, and what does "life back home" really look like? In this article, Zhu Haipeng explores cultural recreation and creation of Chinese society in Europe and the USA, centred on the fortune cookie as a symbol of "local to local international".

https://toldmagazine.org/articles/there-is-no-fortune-cookie-in-china/

As ever, we invite all readers that feel a connection to the article to get in touch and contribute their experiences and ideas to the collaborative newsletter that follows these pieces - you can contact us here or at [email protected]

TOLD Magazine