ISSUE 18 OUT NOW

When Louis Hofmann was younger, he thought he could catch light between his palms. If he could trap such a fragile thing, he could move with it, slowly, like a steady candle in the dark. Even if we can’t see energy, we can feel it, like a dream we could catch right above our heads. When our cover star, Conan Gray, talks about creating music, he says it’s like “grasping at air,” trying to wrangle something that’s both fading and fleeting; “If I don't catch [the songs] right now, I might never get them again.” Damian Hardung calls this feeling “trying to grasp water with your hands,” as there’s an unexplainable emotional energy that actors need to channel while it’s slipping through. Whether trying to trap lived or fictional experience, it’s there somewhere.

Hope is elusive and eternal. Cover star Edvin Ryding references throughout our conversation, “Hope is the last thing that dies.” Our 18th issue is called “A Little Light” because there exists a blinking light in everyone’s future. We wade on, towards it, like a lighthouse. When we are young, hope is the pencilled line on the wooden doorframe just above our head. It’s a promise that a taller tomorrow is within arm’s reach. When the last line is etched and faded, hope still waits even if we can’t see it. It can be slippery as our fingers slide and search for a steady hold. We are all yearning for something.

Some of us have a steadier hold than others. Victor Ray tells us, “I always knew I was an artist when I started, and I always believed that my music would take me where it’s taking me now.” When we say “I just have a feeling,” there’s something very real about it. Throughout childhood, Anson Boon went to the cinema with his family, looked at the water tower, pretended it was the Warner Bros. tower and imagined who he could be. Eventually, he “took a leap of faith” into acting because he just knew it was honest to him.

Michael Cimino tells us, “I always try to push myself to be better, and I'm never really truly satisfied, which I think is actually a good thing. I think if you are satisfied, you stop growing.” Especially in your twenties, you try on different hats, as Conan says, to see what fits. Actors do this in each role, as Damian shares that acting is his way of accepting that we can’t explore every crevice in the sea of possibility in our lives. Edvin says, “The luxury of doing what I do is that I get to experience so many different parts of humanity.” We all want to know who we could be.

Everything is temporary, and there’s a comfort in that. Benjamin De Almeida says, “When summer starts, I can ground myself and realise that usually things are just bad temporarily, seasons change, time passes, and everything is actually fine.” We change, too, but we can’t separate from ourselves. We can’t grow taller than ourselves. We don’t have to. As Conan says, “Who I am is all I’ve ever been. That’s okay. Actually, I love that.”

To you, dear reader, we hope you keep moving forward, but always take yourself with you. We hope it’s everything you hoped it would be, whatever “it” is. In this issue, we hang the weight out to dry and dream of a tomorrow caught like sunlight in our hands.

Our brand new Spring Summer '25 issue, A Little Light, is out now.

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