XM Launch Recap: Back to regularly scheduled programming.
Each day this week, we’ll be releasing a piece from the archive leading up to Sunday’s relaunch.
Delay, doubt, destabilization, demonetization — the four D’s of the apocalypse.
Enough to stall most things before they begin, but XM started well.
75 RSVPs.
16 magazines sold on the night.
That’s 65 total sales if you include the soft-launch at my graduate show. That’s 80% of the first print run gone through word of mouth alone.
Half the room were strangers. Friends came through people bringing people.
Momentum was there, I just didn’t build the structure to hold it.
No website. No system. No place to land.
Things cooled. Attention moved on.
And outside of XM, life shifted too.
A co-founder stepped away.
Money that could have gone back into the publication went into my own practice and living expenses.
The art market proved unstable.
I assumed momentum meant stability.
It didn’t.
The product resonates with people.
I’ve seen it in real time — people hold it, ask questions, their eyes light up. They bounce it in their hand, surprised by its weight.
Whenever I tell people, “I run an independent magazine”, the product they’re holding is never what they expected.
But building something like this requires more than vision.
I’m a creative. I understand image, energy, and ideas.
Operations? That’s something I’m learning in real time.
There was also doubt.
I was advised to keep XM quiet – an “if you know, you know” rarefied art object – rather than build it into a wider platform.
For a moment, I listened. Now I don’t because XM was never meant to be small. It was meant to be expansive and inclusive, representing a diversity of practices and thinkers to shift perceptions around valuation and gatekeeping within artmaking and culture.
So this is the reset. Not polished. Not perfect. Just honest.
We’re back at the beginning, but clearer.
Thank you for sticking with us throughout this journey.
For now, enjoy this look back at the first XM launch.
Thank you to everyone who showed up and made it what it was.
WE INVENTED THE RELAUNCH.
JULY 19th 2026
12 – 6 PM
HACKNEY GALLERY, E5 0NS
Round two… FIGHT!!!
– R.K.A
XM Issue #00 – Launch Credits:
Abbas Zahedi — In conversation
James Jordan Johnson — DJ set
J3SSTAR – Musical performance
Glenn Barnes (Sozo Dining) — Catering
Ross Deeley — Photography
With special thanks to: