TOLD Magazine, Padua (2025)

17/03/2025

We believe cooking is more than sustenance. It is both a way of belonging and of opening up: the first form of dialogue and cultural exchange, the way through which a community recognizes itself while also adapting and changing. Ingredients can transform into living heritage and forms of resistance, in a human geography shaped by flavours and gestures passed through generations.

This is why we chose to explore local development through the lens food in this first graphic novel by Annisa and Fosca, which talk about different hands working the same ingredient, coming from distant worlds that may have never met, yet speak a shared language and tell stories that echo each other.

"Hello! ✨This is Fosca from Venice, and Annisa from Jakarta ✨
We are students in Local Development at The University of Padova.
Welcome to our article. Be ready! Because we are going to take you on a cuisine tour across the globe 🌏
In this article, we are trying to bring up to you some fun facts about two cuisines from two opposite parts of the world – Italy and Indonesia. These two cuisines have the same main ingredients with completely different spices and processing. But you know what? They look similar! 🤩
The title we chose, “BERBEDA TAPI TETAP SATU”, comes from a famously known slogan in Indonesia which means “different but still one”.
We are trying to find similarities in what we eat in our daily lives. As we come from different parts of the world, it is fascinating to see how different we are, but also... not that different!

Here’s a little guide to reading through our article. We decided to use our original language for the ingredients of each cuisine, and all original words in our languages are written in CAPITAL LETTERS.
We also put background color for each original word to indicate the language: green for the Italian language 🟢, and red for the Indonesian 🔴.
We are trying to show you the culture through our original languages, and we put the steps in English to make it clear.
Now you’re ready! enjoy the read~
Thank you"

See the full piece on our website https://toldmagazine.org/articles/berbeda-tapi-tetap-satu/ and if you wish to contribute to TOLD in the form of writing, drawing, painting, poetry, photography, or whichever form of media you practice, get in touch at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

09/03/2025

Freedom of expression teaches us a lot about ourselves, but working together and collective action teaches us about each other. In our latest article, Hazel recounts her story of moving to Italy from China, and explores her experiences with activism and multicultural interpretations of feminist movements.

https://toldmagazine.org/articles/walking-the-street-far-away-from-a-homeland/

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].

24/02/2025

The ninth edition of our collaborative newsletter, ForeTOLD, is out now!
This issue explores mutualist practices at the edge of capitalism, exploring how communities worldwide are building alternatives to profit-driven systems. From cooperatives and mutual aid networks to solidarity economies, we highlight grassroots models of support, collective care, and economic democracy.

Inside, you’ll find stories and experiences from Brazil to Mozambique, London to Palestine, showing how mutualism can transform everyday struggles into movements for justice and sustainability, with books, films, podcasts and zines you can check out to learn more. These stories, contributed by our global community of readers and writers, offer powerful insights into building more inclusive and resilient futures.

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

16/02/2025

The latest instalment in our artistic series is a poem by Giacomo, accompanied with illustrations by Greta - "Milano I Love You, Milano I Hate You".

💬 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!

"This is a small text I wrote on the way back from the centre of Milan to my home in the southern suburbs of Milan, Rozzano. From the Duomo and the University, which is the beating heart of the city, those who are from Rozzano to go to the city take the tram 15 which is the historic and identity tram of the neighbourhood. I think the creativity with which we share a message or a text has no limits. However, it is a text I particularly care about written as I watched all the people getting on and off the streetcar. People who were slowly changing, their appearance, their voices, their nationalities...

I think it is a text that reflects the way I see the city and the romanticism I feel when it comes to this topic, to which I link music, cinema and human relationships and infrastructure. I tried to tell what I feel and the people I was seeing in some way by empathizing with them."

https://toldmagazine.org/articles/milano-i-love-you-milano-i-hate-you/

- With the drawing of who was inspired by the words of the poem -

11/02/2025

"Finally, let us imagine, for a change, an association of free men, working with means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force."
– Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I

In our latest article, we find ourselves in Florence, Italy, where in September 2021, a group of university students started a cooperative in response to rising costs and pressures on living and studying in the city. MUST (MUtualità STudentesca) is based entirely on mutual aid and autonomy, working to protect vulnerable members, and to remove the obstacles they see to university education.
In this article, we interviewed Duccio Valerio (), one of the founders, in exploring cooperation and solidarity among young people in Florence, in the face of increasing privatisation and exploitation.

https://toldmagazine.org/articles/mutualit-studentesca-an-anti-capitalist-cooperative-at-the-university-of-florence/

As ever, we invite all readers that feel a connection to the article to contribute their experiences and ideas to the collaborative newsletter that follows these pieces - you can contact us here or at [email protected]. Our upcoming edition will focus on mutual aid and cooperatives around the works, get in touch!

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!

TOLD Magazine