Index
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Information
Refugia
Serena 
Patagonia 
History

       Refugia Advertorial 
00.
Refugia is a project by Northern Rivers Independent Press, a collaborative magazine existing to provide opportunities to storytellers, artists, creatives, change-makers and big-thinkers. Opportunities that we couldn’t find in regional Australia.

Refugia is our thread, connecting the emerging with the seasoned. The ecology to the art. Our island home with the world. 

Pepared by Miica Balint, Creative Director
miica@northernrip.com
@northernrip
01.Refugia

Editors: Miica Balint and Kate MiddeleerEditorial design by Serena Gramaglia

Printed Publication

250 pages
Made possible by the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation
distr. 2026
We may be little but the stories we tell are big. We are the emerging, the dynamo, the future. 

This magazine is for us.
There is something unique, I think, about what we are cultivating with this magazine. By leading with collaboration, we enable our contributors to guide their own process. And something enigmatic happens. Ula may be able to speak to this, as in her words, what she wrote for Refugia is unlike anything she has written before. 

This is not to say Refugia is free from editorial guidance, nor lacking keen curatorial eyes, but rather that there has been a magnetising adaptability to loosening the reins. 

We hold a similar approach to our partnerships. We are steering clear from an advertising model, and rather inviting select businesses to be our allies in print. Our partnerships will be in alignment to Refugia, holding their own intrigue and impact. 

I see that our ideas in this collective are as big as the world, and I hold a good idea more dear than a scolding copper cup of masala chai atop a frost-tipped mountain. A fresh idea, paired with a commitment to a darn good story, and you have a ripper advertorial.

Your advertorial would be among upwards of thirty pieces, a collection to make up a body of work that speaks to Refugia. A word that ecological ties to a safe haven during environmental change. See four articles to be featured below. 


Māuruuru
Beatriz Ryder
 

An astounding photo-essay of the Paris Olympics surf competition at Teahupo'o, Tahiti, 2024. Be has a long-held connection to Tahiti, and was one of the official photographers for the breathtaking week long competition there.


The Kelper
Digby Ayton and Nick Green


A story of a young man who harvests kelp on Tasmania’s King Island. Paired with remarkable photographs by Nick Green. 


Pain. Signals. Resistance
Edward J Sach



A striking peice of literature that explores the intersection of illness, chronic pain, trauma, and artistic expression. Ed writes of his lived experience with bone and lung cancer, chronic pain, and PTSD, during his recent stint back home in Andamooka, opal-country.


The Shapes That Clouds Make 
Ula Majewski


I couldn’t send you a pitch without including one of your own. Ula explores Refugia, five ways. Her piece encapsulates the complexity, beauty, despair and hope of humankind’s interaction with ecology, loss, connection, protection and tender creation. 
02.


 Serena Gramaglia 

Editorial design is by Serena Gramaglia, an Italian graduate of Barcelona’s ELISAVA University Masters in Editorial Design. Serena works in the crux point of art, ecology, humanity and design.

Below are some works by Ser. I have included these examples to lend imagination a hand, when visualising a not yet tangible Refugia. 


The Plant Magazine

Editorial Design Serena Gramaglia on
Issues 20, 21 & 22

Publication

Chief Editor Cris MerinoArt Direction Carol Montpart Studio, Isabel Merino
A celebration of magnificent, modest, exotic and everyday plants, and the creative enterprises they inspire. Since their first issue in 2011, the magazine has commissioned special artist projects, photography portfolios, creative writing and reportage from established and emerging talents around the world.

Enter/Exit 

Editorial Design Serena Gramaglia
Text by Sarah Blesener, L.J. Granered, Jennifer Jacklin Stratton 

 Publication

148 pages
16 × 21.5 cm 
Pictures: Sarah Blesener, Jennifer Jacklin Stratton
Trauma-Informed Praxis for Visual Journalism and Beyond. Originally intended for visual journalists working with individuals in the aftermath of trauma — although it can offer valuable insights to a wide range of practictioners and perspectives. Its framework is best suited for longer-form, slow journalism and potrait work.


The Manifesto on the Future of Food

Farmacy Kitchen
Editorial Design Serena Gramaglia
 Publication

2023
120 pages
12×18 cm 
Aurora Solá

This book, by Aurora Solá, traces a path from the health of the soil to the health of human beings, with food as the connecting agent between our mental, physical and planetary wellbeing.


This is Water, This is Water

Guggenheim Museum
English
2002
 Publication

246 x 292 mm
522 pages 
Hardcover

A book on presentness in a world overwhelmed by the excess, “where the relentless pursuit of everything has left us feeling disconnected, overworked, overstimulated and disengaged.”
Patagonia  Refugia 

Though I write this from Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro, where coastlines are littered in the byproducts of consumption, and it feels like nobody is paying attention.
The grief of ecological rupture is mounting for many of us, the world over. And is especially affecting our young people. 

Supporting our expression is a very impactful way to stand with the future. 

We are asking for $450 per page of advertorial, which directly covers one long form piece published in the print. We see this as a sustainable way to continue to exist. We foresee cultivating partnerships that enable us to do an annual print run. If you are interested, I have (oh so many) ideas to suit your budget.

It is imperative to us that we produce these magazines in hard-copy format; devoid of digital stress and rich in analogue impact. 

I understand that Patagonia’s advertising is mostly curatorial to only a select few sports endemic publications, so I thank you for considering this. I see storytelling as one of the most important tools of preservation and connection that we have. 

04.History Northern Rivers Independent Press was started by two friends, who spent many evenings bonding over a mutual struggle of finding work in our respective fields, while closing up the Australiana restaurant You Beauty–myself in the bar and Kate on the floor. 

Without yet knowing it, Kate and I were performing ample research of opportunities in regional Australia. Sifting, searching, sharing what we found– and the longer we took stock of the lack of work, the more we realised how many other young people around us were navigating the same murk. 

We, like many before us, were wading through the long-spell of urban migration. Everybody around us seemed to be either living bone to bone as a freelancer, or following the snake to compete for a job in the city. 

How does one stick true to a commitment of living with nature in our regional areas of our island home, and springboard their profession as journalists, writers, documentarians? 

I built the website first, while nursing a broken vertebrae in my neck from a surfing accident, and we started writing. A lot. The purpose of the website was (and still is) to act as a digital portfolio for emerging creatives. The purpose of the printed magazine is to pay contributors fairly for their work. 

Miica Balint  and Kate Middeleer

Roaring Journals has been a light in my life, and Ula, your piece feels like a gift to our mission. 

Lastly, thank you Patagonia for showing me that I too can do business, not as usual. My sister in life, not in blood, works for Patagonia and sent me a copy of Let My People Go Surfing as soon as it was published. She had, in very Laila fashion, placed tape over ‘Businessman’ and wrote ‘Business Person’. 

I hope this is the start of a coversation, 
Miica.