212 Magazine – Issue 20

212 Magazine Issue 20 (Phantasmata) is available now on loremnotipsum.com. 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.

212 magazine is a new biannual publication from Istanbul. It contains short fiction and long-form reportage; distinctive photo essays and revealing interviews. Even though it was born in the city where east meets west (as the love-worn cliche goes), the magazine seeks to transcend the loaded dichotomies of Istanbul’s favourite metaphor, and extends its gaze far beyond the region. The name “212” comes from the area code for Istanbul, but it also happens to be the area code for New York – a piece of misdirection that’s characteristic of the magazine’s ethos: as soon as you try too hard to close in on your subject it has a habit of defying you. Rather than pigeonholing ideas into narrow parameters, 212’s contributors trace connections that will surprise and delight. Each issue is centred around a loose theme – the first is Strange Days. 212 aims to be as challenging as it is influential – to provide an inclusive space for ideas and perspectives to mix without prejudice and better interrogate social, artistic and cultural phenomena from the region and around the world.

Details: 212 Magazine – Issue 20

168 pages, 28 x 38 cm, 1100 grams