Real Review — Issue 18

Issue 18 of Real Review, from Spring 2026, takes "Pretending the World" as its theme.

Based in London, the magazine is edited and designed by Jack Self, with Maddy Weavers as deputy editor, and it treats architecture as a way into the wider question of how people live today.

The issue reads pretending as a way of laying claim: reaching for something one wants and acting as though it were already real, or already held. Gestures of this kind are easily mocked as empty posturing, the editors note, but they are how every new society has begun. Nishant Choksi's cover, a slipping mask, points to the tie between power and performance, whether in the use of political authority or in the way crowds are moved.

Contributors include Petro Chekal, whose photograph "There Is" appears in the issue; Meredith Whittaker, in interview; Sumayya Vally in conversation with Shumon Basar; James Bridle, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Günseli Yalçınkaya, Ana Nicolaescu, Tyler Mitchell and Jack Self. There is also a photo essay on Petro Futures, together with an interview with Alvaro Fernandez-Pulpeiro. The contribution space is given over to Real Review members, who take part through a group chat.

Spring 2026. 100 pages, softcover, 11.5 x 26 cm.