About
The Toe Rag is a quarterly arts and culture magazine focused on non-profit and independent arts in London. Launched in December 2023, it was created to place artists, artistic spaces, and communities in dialogue with one another.
The publication hopes to foster a vibrant ecosystem that uplifts and celebrates the creative brilliance of the city, while critically examining culture and the systems in which it is embedded. Regarding print as an invaluable medium for the dissemination of ideas and democratisation of information, The Toe Rag prioritises slower, more thoughtful creation over efficiency of output, opening up new possibilities for rest and play, togetherness and joyful curiosity. As a registered C.I.C. (Community Interest Company) with non-profit status, we are firmly rooted in our commitment to serving the community.
Summer Issue, June 2024
DREAM WORK
Issue 3 is themed around DREAM WORK. This issue explores how we dream alone, but also collectively: as organisms in entangled environments, and as social beings. In psychoanalytic terms, the dream-work is the passage between our conscious and unconscious thoughts, feelings and desires. Yet dreaming is also a form of collective political work that we do in our waking hours, to bring new worlds into existence and refuse others. For this issue, we have welcomed contributions that explore the oneiric reveries, subconscious desires and hallucinatory visions of the city. What happens to the dreams that fail, that decay, that dissipate under the conditions we find ourselves living in?
OUT NOW
Nour Ben Saïd,Jacob Barnes, Ilana Blumberg, Jip Boxstart, Bertie Brandes, Hector Campbell, Irina Costin, Lu Rose Cunningham, Ben Ditto, Will Ferreira Dyke, Monique Fei, Isabella Greenwood, Miles Greenberg, Athen Kardashian, Laila Majid, Isabel MacCarthy, Aram Masharqa, Vee Matsumari, Louis Blue Newby, Max Peston, Bart Price, Georgina Quach, Oisín Roberts, Sebastián Sánchez-Schilling, Dean Sameshima, Rosa Sittig-Bell, Ella Slater, Phyllis Stein, Adam Stamp, Jay Temperance, Katy Trame, Evie Ward, Robert Wilson, Henry Woodland, Alfred Yatlong Yeung & Bea Ysolda.
Spring Issue, March 2024
CONSUMPTION
Issue 2 took the theme of CONSUMPTION in the most expansive possible sense: as digestion, materialism, commodity fetishism, excess, waste, disease, devotion, obsession. To consume, or to be consumed by something: whether thinkingly or unthinkingly, conspicuously or inconspicuously, as transaction or transformation. We welcomed material that engaged critically with the theme and stretched it to its limits, exploring the contemporary politics of consumption in London and its diverse histories.
FEATURING:
Oluwatobiloba Ajayi, Isa Barzizza, Ilana Blumberg, Betsey Brown, Hector Campbell, Georgia Gordon, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck, Isabella Greenwood, Sofia Hallström, Tom Hardwick-Allan, Tiger Hornby, Athen Kardashian, Colton Karpman, Lena Pola Leszczynska, Margaret Liang, Millie O'Connor, Matteo Pini, Ethan Price, Jago Rackham, Maddy Routon, Cooking Sections, Diyora Shadijanova, Gabrielle Sicam, Eduard Solaz, Maria Sowter, Phyllis Stein & Lily Samarine.
Winter Issue, December 2023
LOCALITY
The inaugural issue addressed how creating a London-focused publication draws boundaries around ideas and spaces, inherently engaging with politics of inclusion and exclusion. We considered how giving a voice to local issues risks precluding perspectives from outside this geographical boundary, or understanding the city within a global context. Exploring the small-scale communities, climates and economies of place, we published a breadth of materials, from archival interrogations to knitting patterns.FEATURING:
Thibault Aedy, Em Bauer, Ilana Blumberg, Hector Campbell, Yasmin N.D, Niamh Glanville-Frayne, Isabella Greenwood, Tayshan Hayden-Smith, Haseeb Iqbal, Luk Man Hon, Athen Kardashian, Isabel MacCarthy, Valentina Magaletti, Paul McGann, Arthur Osofsky, Archie Owen, Max Peston, Planningtorock, Inez de Rijke, Sebastián Sánchez-Schilling, Sin Wai Kin, Liv Thomas & Lydia Wilford.
