At the Above
Useless Fighters - Issue 1

Skiing in Morocco, Congo, and Lesotho. Life in the Peruvian Andes and the Atlas Mountains. Incan descendants cooking lunch in high-altitude villages. Vietnam’s vast, hidden cave systems with their own underground mountains. A hiking crew formed by a French Rastafarian seeking deeper connection beyond city life.

USELESS FIGHTERS is a new magazine that ventures far from the familiar — away from Alpine chalets, ski resorts, and postcard-perfect peaks — to explore mountain cultures and landscapes often left out of the Western gaze.

This inaugural issue celebrates the people who live, climb, hike, ride, and create in the world's high places, offering a fresh lens on travel, nature, and culture. It also takes a critical look at the business of the outdoors — from the environmental toll of technical gear to the microplastics found on Everest. Who owns the image of the mountain, and at what cost?

Named after Lionel Terray’s Conquerors of the Useless, USELESS FIGHTERS honors the beauty and absurdity of chasing summits in a world unraveling from climate change. It’s a tribute to those who seek new perspectives — even when the journey seems futile.

Richly produced and visually striking, the magazine uses mountains as a platform to explore creativity, politics, ecology, and resistance. Contributors include Francis Alÿs, Lea Colombo, Philippe Parreno, Nigel Cabourn, Setsumasa Kobayashi, Yukari Chikura, Francesca Gavin, Marvin Leuvrey, and many others.

Published by PERMANENT FILES, a new venture from Ramdane Touhami and Léonard Vernhet (also creative director of EPOCH), USELESS FIGHTERS is a document of mountain life and the people who shape it.

280 x 380mm

Softcover 

Pick up from our Fitzroy showroom 198 Gertrude St, L1