These are not interviews. They are longer thoughts.
Some subjects are too big for a question and answer. They need room to breathe, to wander, to connect a lost record in Phnom Penh to a club in Lusaka to a kinetic light box in Paris. These are those stories.
The longer form
"The essays are a result of conversations, thoughts and places. Things worth sharing."
Leila · ·
For more than 20 years, Antakly Projects has been a place for conversation. Over a thousand of them, with artists, musicians, photographers, designers and thinkers all over the world.
An interview captures a person at a moment. An essay captures the connective tissue between a person and a movement, a sound and a city, a forgotten scene and the reason it still matters.
It is the difference between reporting that something happened and understanding why it mattered, and to whom, and what we lost when it ended.
What makes these different
Access, not access journalism
These are not pieces written from a press kit. They come from relationships, travels and curiosity built over decades.
The margins, taken seriously
Underground scenes, lost genres, artists working far from the centre of the market.
Connection over coverage
An essay links a sound to a city, a person to a movement, a scene to the reason it still resonates.
Twenty years of attention
This is not a platform chasing relevance. It is a two-decade archive of sustained curiosity and attention.
Featured essay
Fashion · Legacy · 2013
Franca Sozzani's 25 Years of Vogue Italia
On legacy, dissent, and the magazine that refused to be comfortable. A personal essay from inside the building, on Steven Meisel and the years fashion photography was used as cultural commentary.
Read the essay ↗All essays
21 pieces
We Intend to Cause Havoc: This Is Zamrock
Zambia's biggest 1970s rock band: their rise, collapse, and rediscovery after four decades of silence.
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Ghosts in the Groove
Cambodia's golden psych rock era, and how the Khmer Rouge nearly erased it entirely.
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The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie
A personal essay on Damascus's flamboyant lingerie tradition, and the childhood memories it unlocked.
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The End of an Era: Remembering 18th Street Lounge
A farewell to the Washington D.C. venue that ran for 25 years and gave birth to Thievery Corporation.
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Jean-Baptiste Mondino
The director who made photography move and proved the music video was always an art form.
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Bliss, Wonder and Awe, (with a Side of Baloney)
On Jason Silva's live show and the question of whether performance philosophy offers insight or spectacle.
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How Wendy James Paved the Way
A reassessment of the Transvision Vamp frontwoman as an unsung pioneer of female rebellion in pop.
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Sam Bassett's Changing of the Guard
A collaboration at the Hotel Chelsea, and what happens when a building's mythology outlives the people who made it.
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The Fantastical World of Pierre et Gilles
On the French duo's hand-painted photography and why their work refuses to age.
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A Todd Oldham Cover Shoot for Hotel Venus
How a fashion obsession, a detour into finance, and Patricia Field's magazine converged into one afternoon.
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Remembering Peter Lindbergh
What it means to photograph a woman without the lie.
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Pics or It Didn't Happen
Fatima Malki on documentation, presence, and what we choose to record.
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Floria Sigismondi
The director who built her own visual universe before anyone was watching.
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How Music Shapes Our Memories
Body and Soul NYC and the question of what a dancefloor actually does to you.
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In a Sweet Harmony
On sound, collaboration, and the things music does between people.
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Mainstream Mindfulness
What happens when a practice built for silence gets packaged for everyone.
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Sharjah Art Foundation
On what happens when a government decides culture is infrastructure.
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Palestinian Artists in Exile (1975-1986)
Falastin is an initiative rooted in the pursuit of human dignity.
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Music Videos That Rock
The music video as cultural revolution.
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Travel
Notes from twenty years of going somewhere to understand something else.
Read →Pull up a chair and stay a while.
Leila Antakly
Founder and Editor · Antakly Projects
Antakly Projects has been in conversation with artists and creatives from around the world since 2003.
And for the personal rants, opinions you didn't ask for, and the occasional existential spiral: follow me on Substack
Follow us on @antakly.projects (instagram) ✦ Stay curious.