The Cult Collective

20/01/2026

From now on we won't be using this page, as we don't think this is a platform which serves us well anymore.

Please do follow our Instagram if you don't already:
https://www.instagram.com/thecult_collective

All information about upcoming issues, events and submissions can also be found on our website:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk

Thank you for your continued support!

20/01/2026

Our twelfth issue centres around that which is absent, and that which is present.

The things life takes away; the losses and the grief; that which is eradicated by force. All of the moving parts which revolve around the missing things.

The things life gifts us and the things that remain; the presence of everything we have been brought up to believe — or conditioned to believe — doesn’t exist.

Nothing ever truly ends, it is only transformed. Therefore, interrogating absence is an interesting exercise. Often it is a question of detection.

Where does presence lie in absence, and absence in presence?

——————

Submissions of prose, poetry, journalism, still and moving images and other art forms relating to the theme are all welcome. For this issue we particularly welcome forms of cultural documentation and archiving.

We’ll be posting prompts throughout the month to guide and inspire your work.

As ever, our submission guidelines can be found here: https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/submit

Please do refer to the guidelines so that you can be sure you are submitting your work in the right format.

Send your submissions to: [email protected]

ISSUE XII: ABSENCE / PRESENCE
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 18TH, 2026

17/01/2026

SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR OUR FORTHCOMING ISSUE TOMORROW

The Cult Collective took a break from production last year to gather ourselves and regroup. During that time we kept returning to thoughts surrounding a certain theme, which we’ve decided feels timely and urgent for our first issue of the new year. We’re looking forward to sharing it with you tomorrow.

Thank you for staying with us x

17/09/2025

DIGITAL & DIVINE: ERIN LECOUNT'S FIRST HEADLINE TOUR

Tilda Butterworth attends the final sold-out show at London’s Village Underground.

Read on our website:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/post/digital-and-divine-erin-lecount-first-headline-tour

(In true digital and divine fashion our website host has a text glitch, so this is best read on desktop not mobile if possible)

Erin LeCount

Tilda Butterworth attends the final sold-out show at London’s Village Underground.

23/01/2025

“This is the story of an angel after its fall.

The images serve as an analogy between the angel's fall and the concept of being thrown into the world without choice, without being asked, which applies to every human being in existence.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger describes this phenomenon as ‘Geworfenheit’, which can be translated as ‘thrownness’. Heidegger understands it as the inevitability of existence and the arbitrary, obscure, and unknowable processes of nature that lead to the constitutive fact of having to exist.”

Thrown into this by Pauline Kail is a series of 8 analogue photographs, published in ISSUE XI: COMMON GROUND.

You can see the full series of images on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/post/thrown-into-this-pauline-kail

ISSUE XI: COMMON GROUND is still available to order in print on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/shop

Pauline’s Instagram: .ldflowers

18/01/2025

Words of creative wisdom from David Lynch (1946-2025)

18/01/2025

“I believe life is a continuum, and that no one really dies, they just drop their physical body and we'll all meet again, like the song says. It's sad but it's not devastating if you think like that... We're all going to be fine at the end of the story.”

— David Lynch (1946-2025)

18/01/2025

Aerial is a series of six analogue photographs by Rosanna Martin, published in ISSUE XI: COMMON GROUND. These images were among the first submissions we received for the issue, and they really guided us in terms of the shape the zine ended up taking.

We also published a beautiful prose piece by Rosanna called The Street Sweeper, the Smoker and the W**d Man (To whom, all those, with which I share these streets; I root for you.) Both submissions were so tapped in to the vision that we had for this issue, and we’re very grateful to have had the opportunity to publish them.

Rosanna writes:

“Concerned with the ‘second-Nature’ of a globalised world, Aerial materialises a poetic of planes from cloud, aisle and ground level. It is foremost a grappling with scale, that extends to a more existential search for difference and selfhood from within a system of mass movement and regulated frontierless-ness. Attempting to bring the dominant and post-colonial aesthetic of distance closer, into the hands of the individual rather than the eye of the satellite, the camera acts as the cheek upon which these landscapes press upon, whilst the image condenses as breath does upon a window.”

You can see the full series of images on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/post/aerial-rosanna-martin

ISSUE XI: COMMON GROUND is still available to order in print on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/shop

Rosanna’s Instagram:

16/01/2025

We were so pleased to be able to publish two brilliant pieces of performance documentation in ISSUE XI: COMMON GROUND. This is Caged To Preserve by Marta Burhan, a three-hour-long performance that happened in London in December 2023.

Marta writes:

“When walking the streets of my home city of Lviv in Ukraine, on my first visit back since the start of the full-scale invasion, I started noticing shapes I’d never paid attention to before — shapes that used to blend in with the landscape of the city of my childhood so much that they almost became stone shadows. These static shadows went unnoticed. They weren’t worth stopping to look at, because they would be standing there forever.

But this time round every single statue and monument jumped out at me, wrapped in fabric and other materials, caged in huge metal cage-like structures as if they had grown overnight; as if they hadn't been standing there for decades. Although they were covered up, for the first time in my life, I saw them.

I find the concept of being caged in order to survive (explosions) an interesting one. Restriction = safety. Cage = preservation. Where does freedom lie within these strange conclusions? To survive you must wrap up, hide, reside inside of a cage whose structure never before symbolised safety. An animal is more safe in the wild than inside of a cage.”

You can see more images from Caged To Preserve on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/post/caged-to-preserve-marta-burhan

ISSUE XI: COMMON GROUND is still available to order in print on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/shop

Marta’s Instagram:

15/01/2025

Dance On The Common is a selection of analogue photographs from an ongoing series by Darius Kanuga, published in our most recent issue, COMMON GROUND.

Darius is a 24-year-old photographer from South East London with ethnic roots in Iran and Guyana. He studied Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at UAL LCC and graduated in the summer of 2022. His work spans from fashion to fine art photography to visceral rave imagery.

He writes:
“These photos have been taken over the last six years, and this is a project that I will continue contributing to until the day I stop making images. The sheer joy, catharsis and passion that dance and music allow people to effortlessly enjoy is something that we cannot take for granted as a society so jaded with pressure, pain and paranoia. The dance is where we find mutual understanding, and where momentary bliss can be easily accessed.”

You can see more photos from Dance On The Common and read the rest of Darius’ artist statement and bio on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/post/dance-on-the-common-darius-kanuga

ISSUE XI: COMMON GROUND is still available to order in print on our website here:
https://www.thecultcollective.co.uk/shop

Darius’ Instagram: .kanuga