How art is reflecting our time? How our time is inspiring artists? This is what this podcast is about. This year, I’m proposing you several series of conversations with artists to understand the world as seen through their eyes and their art. Each series of four conversations will be about one topic, one social phenomenon. We will also listen to their inspiring personal stories, as these artists decided to give up everything in their life to follow their dreams, their values and their passion for their art.
Hosted by Assia Labbas.
This first series is about the Sustainable Fashion Scene in New York. We are listening to 5 inspiring women to discover this movement and how it reflects in a broader scale the need for the new generation to merge their environmental activism with their work and art.
Our first conversation is with Anne Whiting. She is a young designer and founder of the ethical womenswear label Anne James New York.
She is very involved in the Sustainable Fashion community in New York, extremely passionate about ecology and fashion and at the early age of her career. We talked about her story, the influence of the women of her life, how her experience in marketing, production and design shaped her engagement.
When she knew that sustainable fashion was there, that many brands already opened the lead, she decided to join the field, but she doesn’t hide her insecurities as a young entrepreneur and the tough competition out there.
Our second conversation is with Nina Faulhaber. She co-founded in 2015 the ethical brand ADAY with Megan He, who she met when they were both working at Goldman Sachs. They describe ADAY as a technical, seasonless and sustainable wardrobe.
With Nina, we talked about her inspiring story and the one of their brand. Why she decided to change her life to start her own company, a clothing brand for women like her and Megan. How they discovered the background of the fashion industry while building ADAY and how sustainability became an obvious and organic criteria during the process of defining their clothes. Today, ADAY is a successful start-up, and Nina is showing us that being a business woman is as important as being a designer when you are about to start a sustainable brand.
Our third conversation is with Tara St James. She is a precursor in the sustainable fashion scene in New York. She started her ethical brand Study NY as a designer in 2009. 10 years later, she proved that a sustainable company can be sustainable. I met Tara at the Brooklyn Fashion and Design Accelerator, a hub for ethical fashion, where she is mentoring young designers on building their sustainable brands.
She told me about her story, her brand, and her work on educating people about sustainability. She teaches to students in fashion schools and is also being transparent with customers by telling every step of her supply chain on her website. We also discussed about the impact of fast fashion companies in the industry, the future of fashion, what is the message behind her clothes.
Our fourth and last conversation of this series about sustainable fashion is with Leticia Bordoni and Romina Pirani. These two Argentineans women from Amsterdam founded Pause, a platform that helps sustainable fashion brands to grow. They organize Pop Up stores for ethical brands from all over the world and want to inspire people to be more conscious when they buy clothes. Leticia and Romina also advise these young brands, help them to reach a bigger audience and to find a good business model.
I met them in New York while they were launching their 6th and 7th editions of Pause Conscious Pop Up. They told me about their personal stories. Why they support the idea to PAUSE. Why they try to raise awareness to people and what sustainable brands should do to survive in the fashion industry.
Follow the podcast on Instagram @listentoyourart_podcast to discover in images the work of our artists and more about the sustainable fashion scene in New York.
Conversations avec des cinéastes. Ils ont tous le même point commun. Ils posent leur plume et leur caméra sur la fine frontière qui sépare la fiction de la réalité. // Conversations with filmmakers. They all have something in common. They put their pen and camera on the thin border that separate fiction with reality.
Episode 1 (anglais) : Conversation with Hossein Amini.
He is an Iranian-born British screenwriter and film director.
I’ve talked with Hossein about his show "McMafia", which is a true representation of what the mafia looks like today. We are not in the "Godfather" anymore. In his show, we learn that organized crime organizations have dived into the globalized world and our digital age.
We also spoke writing, his journey and his work as a screenwriter, and how he works when he is telling a story that must reflect the real world. My goal was to know : Does a screenwriter must become a reporter?
Episode 2 (en français): Conversation avec Mounia Meddour, réalisatrice et scénariste de "Papicha".
Dans cette conversation, Mounia Meddour partage son histoire: l'influence de son père, le réalisateur Azzedine Meddour; son adolescence à Alger; ses premiers pas en tant que réalisatrice de documentaires; sa volonté de mêler la réalité et la fiction dans son cinéma; comment l'histoire de "Papicha" est née; pourquoi son premier film est intimement lié à sa propre histoire; et les difficultés pour montrer le film aujourd'hui en Algérie.