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In my last year’s review, I wrote that some part of me wished to keep PAF jealously to myself. Either that wish has not been intercepted in the ether or has been twisted completely because the 2025 edition of PAF, Festival of Film Animation and Contemporary Art in Olomouc, Czechia, was bursting at the seams; again. However, it’s one of the Czech festivals that deserves to be sold out and a bit cramped, and I’ll tell you why.

Between November 14 and 16, 2025, the international and multidisciplinary FASHIONCLASH Festival once again descended upon Maastricht, the Netherlands. SWARM MAG’s co-founder, Kateřina, was kindly invited to be a member of the jury awarding the best fashion film at the festival’s 17th edition. We also dispatched the other co-founder, Markéta, on a little delegation to accompany her and glean the strongest currents and tendencies in contemporary young fashion design and performance art. Together, they now present their highlights from the three-day event.

After several years of publishing, researching, reaching out, celebrating, checking in, bonding, and connection-making, our archives have now grown vast, deep, and bountiful. Therefore, for our upcoming theme, COLLECTIVE CURRENTS, we have elected to do a sort of look-back and look-in. We welcome you among friends and kin, collaborators and muses, admirers and admired. Accompanying artwork by Ekaterina Skvortsova-Kowalski.

“At the mountain’s cold peak, there is no wasted movement, and nothing without its shadow.” Within only a year of two shows — one at PAF film festival, Ostrava, one at CTM, Berlin — Swiss adventurous music tastemakers Danse Noire do the good thing early by releasing Theo Alexander & Qow’s collaborative performance, ‘So Afraid To Show I Care’. We are elated to welcome a first-time guest writer, Prague-based Freddie Hudson, who penned a sweeping and suggestive review of the masterfully concocted album for SWARM MAG.

Gleam so bright you need shades. Is it just superficial or possibly from within? Sometimes, it feels nice to resign and get comfortably dazzled before the deception reveals itself. Without further ado, we are launching the second theme of 2025, GILDED LURE, to spoil you with a bit of opulence.

Miriam Pružincová’s work oscillates between film and photography. In the end, however, it doesn’t matter whether we are looking at a moving or a still image. The stories that her images tell mostly don't happen in front of our eyes anyway. The alien stories we watch need to be experienced and lived beyond their timeline. Why? Because they are stories about our very selves. I jump back and forth between her photos. I scroll through them for a while, then get stuck on a few. I look at the films, then at the photos again, building a story. One minute they make me sad and the next they make me happy. Then I feel both at the same time.

You know what time it is – that delicious timeless interplay between solitude, melancholy, seasonal depression and self-reflection. Today, we're launching our third theme of 2024, FEELING BLUE. It will have everything to do with both the mood and the colour and we invite you in. Custom-made accompanying animation by Marek Mundok.

We've emerged from the thawed soil and we crave quick energy. Sweetness so frustrating you'll want to spit it out. By launching our first theme for the 2024 season, SUGAR RUSH, we wish to replenish your tired brains with fast carbs and worry about balanced diets later. The theme's cover was crafted by the talented Czech illustrator and graphic designer Danchez.

Witness the allure of our ritual candlesticks, crafted from hand-blown glass by Makora Josefina Krosno, and infused with exclusive aromatic wax and natural essences. SWARM MAG’s first merch was made in collaboration with Dark Concept Store, reanimating artifacts that revere the occult and sustainable craftsmanship, guiding seekers to transformation through the flickering glow of enchanted flames.

Music journalism is a sight rarely seen at SWARM Mag but some occasions are just too good not to share and recommend. Especially such a project as the INOTA Festival, which took place at the beginning of September this year. Enjoy a stream of observations from the very first year of Hungary's most ambitious audiovisual event.

Especially in the art world (but applicable universally), savouring, storing, sustaining and protecting your creative stimuli and inputs is just as paramount as letting them flow. Our fourth 2023 theme, ROOTS OF TASTE, seeks to find visual representations of our deepest, inherent drives to create that both anchor and activate us. The theme's animation was custom-made by Hélène L. Vaneukem.

Oh, to let go and succumb to the inner child for a moment. This summer, we have something delightful for you. Sit down in our whimsical lounge and let yourself be warmly engulfed by sillines and our new theme, SEED OF PEACE. The theme's opening article is accompanied by playful abstract animation by Zsófi Edőcs who also composed the background music. Let's sprout!

“We always wanted a place to hide. To inhabit islands with their own rules, where we can die and be reborn.” Today’s feature by Bára Čápová explores the parallels between Deleuze’s utopia of desert islands and contemporary liminal space aesthetics. Her meditation is accompanied by illustrations by Andrea Sklepek Šafaříková, underscoring the mysterious atmosphere of once-crowded, now-empty environments.

Léa Porré’s fascination with transcending the same old ways of interpreting history finds expression in her 3D works and installations. Today, the London-based Belgian artist presents two of her recent projects, Arcana Arcorum and The Beginning of All Moist Things which, in her style, “experiment with 3D world-building as a tool to heal from our past, and future-forecast.”

There are only two scenarios for the future. In his philosophical essay, Becoming a Nuclear Ghost (Notes on the Non-Existence of Utopia), on the basis of postapocalyptic pop-culture visions, Martin Charvát constructs the outermost possibilities of social existence. Illustrated by Dominik Turan.

Visions of escaping civilization and technology for a simple life of manual labor have crept into many an artists’ dreams since the industrial revolution, but Alexandr Martsynyuk’s recent work explores the inevitable inescapability of automation even in a rustical, barebones existence. Join him today on a routine trip to the tomato allotments in his speculative spin on the post-apocalypse.

Tea Strazicic’s visual narrative goes hand in hand with the eponymous experimental story of a group of friends shedding their individuality in achieving a more genuine interconnection. Join this otherworldly troupe on their psychedelic-futuristic journey and perhaps you too will purge a part of yourself you no longer need.

If 'utopia' is the promise of four-day workweek for some thanks to even more intelligent automatisation of labour, why not let AI do the heavy creative lifting? Welcome to the opening article of our inaugural 2023 theme, TOWARDS TERRA. To match the Midjourney-generated illustrations accompanying the article, we've interviewed the talk-of-the-town app ChatGPT regarding its “opinions” on the future of various artforms

Custom-written for our current theme FULL OF DESIRE, Czech author Zuzana Trachtová presents a string of associative vignettes offering a glimpse into a heart-rending and organic trudge through a body and mind ravaged by heartbreak. Accompanied by illustrations by Eva Maceková. HE'S A DRUG, I'M A WITCH

Polish artist Marta Karkosa uses the medium of photography to explore contemporary women’s attitudes to their own bodies, promoting the beauty and uniqueness of every corporeal form. In today’s exclusive interview, Marta goes in-depth into her book Women Body Acceptance, which intimately explores these themes across several generations of women living in a strongly conservative nation-state.