Mola: The digital magazine fostering cross-cultural connections and uplifting the Global South

Today (17 July) marks the launch of Mola, a new London-based digital platform and publication that aims to diversify cultural storytelling by amplifying creatives from the Global South and its diaspora. Platforming the work of photographers, filmmakers, artists, writers and more, the magazine – which will publish on an annual basis – will also host an exhibition to coincide with each edition, so as to provide both online and offline experiences. For its founder, the creative director Isabela Lima, it was important for Mola to move beyond simple “tick box” diversity efforts. “We want to invert the equation, not out of spite, but because it was beyond my comprehension why only a tiny portion of the immense global creative talent pool is given opportunities in the industry,” she says.

When it comes to creating striking publications, Isabela’s got her fair share of experience. Born and raised in Brasília, Isabela studied graphic design and trained as an art director in her home city before moving to London six years ago to do a master’s at Central Saint Martins. Since then, she’s been an art director first at Nataal, followed by AnOther Magazine and Beyond Noise. It was entering the editorial world with Nataal that really provided Isabela with the basis for her new venture. “[It] really allowed me to see that the publishing landscape can be different and that it can be tailored to people that come from where I come from and its surroundings,” she says.

Produced over the last year and a half, Mola has seen many different shapes and directions, its vision fine tuned with the help of numerous loyal artists and collaborators. But, shaping Mola into what it is today was a “lengthy and deeply personal process”, says Isabela. It pushed the art director to grapple with questions like what makes an image ‘good’, or what defines ‘coolness’. “Growing up in South America, we were conditioned to believe that ‘cool’ originated from Europe and the US,” she says. “Living in London while creating Mola, I found myself confronting these ingrained ideas once again.” Overall, Isabela sees the publication as having embraced anthropophagy, a concept focusing on cultural absorption as coined by Brazilian modernist in the late 1920s. Isabela summarises: “we have metaphorically ‘swallowed’ and ‘digested’ external cultures to create something new and unique”.

Being a digital publication, Isabela jumped at the possibility of having not one, but three beautiful commissioned covers; one taken by Mar+Vin and styled by Stephania Yepes in Brazil, the others taken by Ana Margarita Flores in Peru and Delali Ayivi in Togo. The creation of the bright red buoyant logo – designed by Augusto de Campos – Isabela describes as a “pinch-me moment”; Isabela learnt about the poet and visual artist in school and had admired him since. Augusto, who was on board from day one, approached the design in his “classic” style, says Isabela, playing with the title in a poetic manner. Mola is a Portuguese word which translates in English to ‘spring’, so to reflect this Augusto wrapped the wordmark in a rounded spring. “We then simplified and distilled this concept, modernising the spring into a chromed 3D version and separating the type and spring for better legibility,” says Isabela.

The first edition explores an array of stories, including two artful photo series; one on reforming the myth of El Dorado the ‘lost city of gold’ in Colombia, and another, conceived by Delali Ayivi, that aims to “build bridges between Togo and its diaspora and provide healing”, says Delali. Alongside the visual stories, Isabela was intent on including relevant articles, those that delve thoughtfully about culture without shying away from politics. P. Momag’s piece interrogates our lives under capitalism and the subsequent neglect of nature, while Diogo Serafim explores the ‘death of cinema’ through modern media consumption, and Claudio Leal interviews Augusto de Campos, discussing the 93-year-old’s relationship with technology, and how it’s evolved. This thoughtful magazine is an exciting first step in what’s set to be a platform that will make its mark, one story at a time.

Mola is launching tonight with an exhibition at Photobook Cafe in Shoreditch, London.