Curious about
their work,
not the moment.
Leila Antakly has spent over twenty years in conversation with artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers, and thinkers all over the world who are making work that matters. These are the conversations.
Interviews from the Archive
Explore all our conversations
Inside Nafsika Skourti’s Fashion Vision
A handwritten letter from a loved one. Political graffiti scrawled on a prison wall. A page ripped from an old newspaper. Inscriptions from a 1937 coin. These are the fragments of Palestinian life that Nafsika Skourti has embedded into fabric. Not as metaphor. As documentation. Volume II: Traces of Being is the second chapter in her series حُبِّي فِلَسطِين, My Love, Palestine, and it is among the most important things happening in fashion right now.
Building the Platform: Sunny Rahbar and The Third Line's Defense of Middle Eastern Art
In the early 2000s, Dubai's contemporary art scene was not a given. It was a possibility waiting for a catalyst. Sunny Rahbar became that catalyst. She built audience before she built sales. She hosted film screenings and talks and club nights before she went to Frieze. She defended artists who had no gallery representation and watched them grow into artists shown in every significant Western institution. An Arabic name on a Western gallery's roster is no longer unusual. She is one of the reasons why.
A Conversation with Marie Bärsch
She picked up a friend's camera in her late teens and never put it down. A conversation with Marie Bärsch — editorial photographer for Vogue, Elle and Harper's Bazaar — on location as muse, the perfect shot, and why her dream project involves elephants.
Paula Mendoza: The Colombian Jewelry Alchemist Lighting Up New York
Paula Mendoza was a journalist before she was a goldsmith. One course changed everything: Jewelry as Sculpture, at Washington's Corcoran School of the Arts. A pilgrimage through Peru's ancient filigree workshops did the rest. Today her pieces are worn by Beyonce, Zendaya, and Sarah Jessica Parker, her artisans in Bogota have worked with her for over a decade, and her wedding in 2026 had a dress code of all black, a lineup of five DJs from Burning Man, and a theme called Rave Royale. She is, as Leila says, something special.
“Visibility has never been our measure of significance. We seek out artists and inspiring individuals whose work sparks curiosity, challenges assumptions, and leaves a lasting impression.”