In an overwhelming and chaotic world like the one we live in, we often lose the sense of time. Sometimes we stop to take stock, understand the direction but then we re-immerse ourselves in the frenzy of life. So I hadn’t fully realized that we have reached the thirtieth issue of LYF.

30 issues is a significant achievement for a magazine like ours.
I see them there, on my bookshelf, each issue represents an incredible journey through ideas, passions, reflections, connections, art, culture and, in some way, life experiences. The word that can summarize this editorial experience is Ecstasy, understood not only as a mystical or spiritual state, but as a deep involvement and ability to elevate oneself through the power of words and images.
A magazine, if well made, is a door that opens the mind and heart to new worlds, new perspectives. Each issue reflects a theme, an emotion, a message that becomes a journey in which you get lost and rediscover yourself, as it happens in any ecstatic experience. Thirty chapters of an evolving story, a narration in which each issue represents a stage of growth, exploration and transformation. In this context, ecstasy is a true form of creative revelation, in which ideas take shape and acquire a life of their own.

This is where the leitmotif of this thirtieth issue comes from: Ecstasy. An almost archaic concept, relegated to mystical religious visions or experiences from times gone by. However, ecstasy is a condition that is more current than ever, and perhaps more necessary than one might think. It is a state of mind that occurs when one lets oneself be completely transported by the experience one is living, when one loses the sense of time and space to immerse oneself in a different world. This can happen in various contexts: in the contemplation of a work of art, in reading a book that touches us deeply, or in the creation of contents that speak directly to the soul. It is a feeling that goes inward, towards a mysterious world, which not only allows us to abstract ourselves from the noise of external life, but also to reconnect with the deepest part of ourselves and the world around us.
And in such a convulsive world, a profound beauty is found in stillness.
As Franz Kafka wrote: “You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet”.
This is the sense of ecstasy that we have described in our shooting in which the rooms are expansions of thought, extensions of a mental mechanism that proceeds infinitely and leads you where you desire. A game of interiors and exteriors in search of an identity that slips out of your hands.

For our sections related to artistic explorations, we have chosen extraordinary artists with different narratives linked to the concept of Ecstasy.
The more psychological and visual one told through the ironic and surreal works of Matthew Grabelsky that lead to a deep reflection on the meaning of identity, reality and perceptions.
Photographerhal explores ecstasy on a physical and symbolic level as a visual and emotional fusion, in which two bodies become a single entity, almost dissolving individual boundaries.
Jordi Díaz Alamà’s ecstasy is powerful, evocative, uses light and color making his figures almost alive and suspended in time and is linked to the profound theme of the human condition and its duality.
Kana Tsumura’s ecstasy is revealed with very refined images immersed in a unique palette in which she blends soft tones and nocturnal atmospheres creating a sensory experience where scents, flavors, silences and evocative whispers appear almost tangible.
Our designer friends have told us about an ecstasy seen as an experience of complete realization, where creativity combines with craftsmanship and innovation and the result is an artistic process that involves technical precision and aesthetic sensitivity.

Ultimately, ecstasy is not a privilege reserved for a few, but a possibility accessible to all those who have the courage to stop, listen and let themselves be transported beyond the lines of the ordinary flow of life to discover a deeper reality under the surface.