PUBLIC DOMAIN - ISSUE 2026

Once a year, Public Domain comes back to print.
Not as a routine, not as a content dump, and not because the world needs one more object on a shelf. We come back because there is still something powerful in gathering stories, images, voices, and obsessions into a physical form. Something slower. Something heavier. Something you can carry, lose, damage, lend, and keep.
This issue arrives in a strange time. The world feels louder, more divided, more nervous than ever. Every day seems to bring another reason to choose sides, close doors, or retreat into smaller circles. Public Domain was built on the opposite instinct. It exists to connect people from different scenes, countries, and languages who recognize the same energy when they see it: commitment, independence, culture, craft, and the need to build something real.
That is why this book keeps moving between worlds. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, art, photography, skateboarding, surfing, music, design, fashion, publishing, and lifestyle are not separate territories here. They are parts of the same map. The mats, the streets, the ocean, the studio, the darkroom, the dojo, and the workshop all tell us something about how people shape identity through practice.
Inside this issue, you will meet figures who have spent their lives doing exactly that. Demian Maia speaks about discipline, longevity, and the deeper meaning of Jiu Jitsu beyond competition. Ed Riggins takes us back to the early machinery of Thrasher Magazine, when publishing was not a career plan, but a necessity. Tony Magnusson revisits H-Streets Shackle Me Not and Hokus Pokus, the rider driven energy that changed skateboarding. Lacanau Pro reminds us how one beach, one town, and one event helped put French surfing on the map. BJJ Surf Collective brings the same instinct back to the Landes, where surf, Jiu Jitsu, friendship, local culture, and transmission become part of one shared way of life.
There are also image makers and builders of visual language. Butcher Billy cuts through pop culture with irony, color, and collision. Stefan Kocev brings together photography, Jiu Jitsu, surf, recovery, and family with rare honesty. Franck Seguin reminds us that sport photography is not only about the result, but about rhythm, instinct, trust, and story. Andrea Dessi looks at grappling through the eyes of someone raised on skate mags, anti design, and raw visual culture.
Elsewhere, the issue follows the same thread through Pelago, Red Wing, WhiskyWolf, Thomas Mietz from Carpe Diem Jiyugaoka, Lucien Lucien, Reggie Almeida, and more. It also looks at NOVA GP and Ocean BJJ Pro Championship, two different but equally ambitious examples of a European grappling scene no longer waiting for permission to create its own stages, its own rules, and its own mythology. Different worlds, same question: how do you build something that lasts without sanding down what made it alive in the first place?
That question matters to us. Public Domain has never been interested in clean categories. We prefer the friction between them. We are here for people who train hard but care about music, who collect books and still get their hands dirty, who grew up on skate videos and now run brands, gyms, studios, magazines, labels, or small independent projects. We are here for those who understand that culture is not consumed from the outside. It is lived, practiced, shared, and sometimes fought for.
So yes, it is a real pleasure to be back with you once again. One issue a year may not sound like much in a world built on permanent updates. But maybe that is the point. Public Domain is not trying to chase the feed. It is trying to leave a trace.
Welcome back to the Domain!