strand

Life in 2025 feels like a series of reboots. The shiny future we were all promised – one of flying cars which ‘Back to the Future 2’ predicted would arrive in 2015 – never did arrive. Thus, nostalgia has become the vehicle for our escapism – the means by which we may live out a fantasy of some cultural and political present that never came into being.

Writer Shanai Tanwar reflects on her experience as an international student in London as her first term draws to a close.

Writer Sayema Islam discusses how the Coca-Cola brand utilises nostalgia marketing in order to create a brand mythos.

Jennifer Hensey discusses how nostalgia romanticises submission, turning the tradwife into an aesthetic of comfort and control.

As the world tilts into economic freefall, social exhaustion and climate crisis, we start to reach backwards. Not because the past was better, but because the future feels like it’s been cancelled.

Inside the walls of Dagenham Library in East London, I found myself surrounded by writers, readers, and creatives, all gathered in celebration of the written word and the magazine born from their shared passion.

Just a week after getting my driver’s license, I was in a car accident. What lodged itself most stubbornly in my mind wasn’t the impact – not the deployment of the airbags or the sound of breaking metal – but rather the clothes I was wearing.

Writer Louie Tunstall crafts a poem about how people romanticise experiences during their youth, and whether that excitement lasts.

Writer Alberta N'Guessan writes a poem about identity, colonialism and strength to celebrate Black History Month.

Autumn circulates into our systems like a prescription medicine we never remember taking, side effects including: vertigo, excessive nostalgia, and a dulled taste for sweetness.