#389: Penelope Sonder (Chief Operating Officer of NALA) (pt. 1 of 2)

Today we released part one of our interview with Penelope Sonder. She’s the Chief Operating Officer of the art tech company NALA. It’s an acronym for the networked artistic learning algorithm that matches artists with buyers and designers. 

Penelope has nearly 20 years in the fine art industry, and prior to NALA, she was a self-employed art advisor and held various positions in galleries in the UK and Germany. 

Artists of all types will be impressed with the innovative ways NALA is connecting artists with buyers from around the world! https://nala.art/home

Transcript

Welcome

Announcer 0:18

Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast, Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion, and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent, or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts, Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.

Andy Heise 1:01

Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise.

Nick Petrella 1:04

And I'm Nick Petrella. Today we're speaking with Penelope Sonder. She's the chief operating officer of the art tech company Nala. It's an acronym for the networked arts learning algorithm that matches artists with collectors in galleries. Penelope has nearly 20 years in the fine art industry, and prior to NALA, she was a self-employed art advisor and held various positions in galleries in the UK and Germany. We'll link to NALA in the show notes so you can see their collections, read more about their venture, and sign up for their newsletter. Penelope, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Penelope Sonder 1:39

Thank you so much for having me.

Swiping Into Art Discovery

Nick Petrella 1:42

Please give us a quick overview of how Nala works and what you do there.

Penelope Sonder 1:47

Nala, the Art Matchmaker, is a platform for artists and buyers, very simply said. We're connecting artists with um any sort of buyers from very casual to um experienced collectors as well as interior designers. And the idea is um to match um by taste, basically. So it's an intuitive process on the buyer side to find what they like on the app, which is a more casual way of interacting with Nala. It would be a um almost um uh what it works through swiping, which means it's it's like a dating app almost. So you swipe left and right on uh on an artwork, and then you can match with the artist. Um, so that's a fun little gamification part of um how we bring together people. Um, and then you can buy directly from the artist and you can interact with them. So it's a community in itself. On the interior side of things, um, we build a dashboard that integrates into the interior designer's workflow to find art that really fits their projects. Um, the main idea is to offer an alternative to how the art market works. Um, it's a really good time to experiment with that field. And um the um the whole idea was born from our um founder's frustration of actually getting his own art into galleries. So he um he's an entrepreneur from uh Canada and he's been painting his entire life. And uh while he was studying at MIT, he was looking for possibilities to show his art all over the world. So he was very proactive. He was contacting galleries and speaking to them and was trying to find his in, and noticed how incredibly difficult that is, and also how much it doesn't really depend on um talent or you know, um, it had a lot to do with who he knew and you know, those kind of things that you might not think about um from the outside and when you get started. And um so uh this led him to build the foundations of Nala. So over four years with his um with his team from MIT, he um he built the algorithm on which we are based.

Nick Petrella 4:16

Yeah, and we're gonna unpack this as we as we go along. Uh, but for right now, when did Nala start?

Penelope Sonder 4:24

Uh it started in 2021. Um, when he so the platform wasn't um up and running back then, but this is when he started building the algorithm on which everything that we do is based. Um, so it was um it started with collecting a lot of data around the art world. So what kind of artwork's out there, what is sold, who's selling it, um, and what kind of uh uh art connections uh exist, and so on. And then this data was um then analyzed and um and looked at by arts professionals. That's where people like me then come in and um build a connection between um you know hard data and what it actually means to understand art from that perspective. So um a very interesting challenge.

Nick Petrella 5:17

Yeah. And uh two quick follow-up questions before I kick it back over to Andy. Uh how soon after the startup did you join? And uh what do you do there at Nala?

Penelope Sonder 5:30

So I joined, I joined in early 2023. Um, and um through a funny accident, actually. I was working um in London uh freelance at the time, and um I got a uh basically like a promotional email, like a mass email from Ben Gulag. And uh the email was like had all kinds of little cats animations in it, and I was very confused. I had no idea what I was looking at. Um but he was just describing what he was building, and I think he was looking to um get artists on uh onto the app. And I loved the idea, and so I had time, I guess, that afternoon, and I sent him a message and I was like, hey, uh, I don't know who you are. This the idea is amazing, but it looks terrible. Um, so so he came to London and um and we met and talked about it. And uh I joined him at the beginning, um, part-time as an advisor um to give uh input on um where this could sit in the art market, how it needs to look, um, how to cater to artists best, what the traditional processes are and what needs to be bettered. And then very quickly um I moved into um the uh full-time. Uh I'm now the COO of the company. Um, and uh I'm now working across um all teams, um product, marketing, um, and I'm looking after our three different uh user groups. Right.

From Galleries To Art Tech COO

Andy Heise 7:04

And Nick mentioned in the in the introduction, and you just referred to uh or made a reference to it here, uh you'd spent uh you had a you have a long career in the art world um working independently, working with galleries, freelancing, that sort of thing. Can you give us a little bit of a rundown of of what that experience looks like?

Penelope Sonder 7:21

Yeah, so I think I had a rather um unconventional path. Um I grew up in Cologne, um, which was uh a lucky start to working in the art world. Um a lot of my friends' parents had, you know, casual warholes in the guest bathroom and you know those crazy kind of stories. And um, so I I just grew up around art and uh and I really enjoyed it, and uh went on to study art history um and uh in in Cologne and in the Netherlands, and then went to London for a little um uh like a yeah, like a work experience back in the day, which did not work out on the first day I left and I didn't know what to do because I saved all of this money um to be in London. And then um I started working at a little street art gallery in East London and stayed on. Um, and it was uh uh like a big um amazing opportunity. I got into the urban art environment um very early on when it was still bubbling in London and um and started um my uh artist management career really. So I was always in touch with galleries and I worked at a lot of other galleries after this. Um also ran my own gallery in Cologne in between. Um and I walk I worked in auction um for a while. Um I ran an urban um contemporary department. Um I built several galleries for um investors and ran them secondary market, um, primary market, uh I did acquisitions, so pretty much across the board. Um uh collection management and so on. So my heart was always with um artist management, quite quite frankly. So throughout my entire career, I never um stopped doing that. And then um, yeah, through the this email changed a lot. This random email that I got from Ben Gulag really kind of got me into tech, although I'm still very much embedded in the art market. Sure. Um and um and I I still we we do exhibitions, we do live events. So um it's all connected.

Andy Heise 9:35

Yeah, and that's that exactly, and that's exactly what I was gonna ask you about is like that that that freelance work, that independent work, the artist management work that you had done, how did that, how does that shape how you think about your work with with Nala, which is a technology platform?

Penelope Sonder 9:49

Um the the reason why I decided to make this huge jump, because um, you know, leaving the very traditional art market for a startup out of Canada, um that, you know, a tech startup, um, was uh was a big risk. And uh I mean I was always quite um happy to take risks, uh clearly. Um, but uh it made so much sense because my um one of the biggest issues as a as an artist manager for me was to uh bring get the the the talent out there, right? Get it seen by the right people, you know. Visibility is a huge issue, and um, the internet is actually uh not making this better. You know, we had this the beginnings of Instagram where it became this amazing platform, everyone thought, okay, I'm now visible to the world, I can, you know, market myself. And then the algorithm changed, and that changed everything again. So um I do believe that um the NALA is a huge extension of what I was already trying to do as an individual. Now I can't manage more than 10 artists at a time. Right. And I'm so that was me in my 20s, right? So um uh at this point, um, we have over 18,000 um artists on NALA, and um, and we're doing for them what I intended to do as an independent advisor. So um it it it is a huge extension of my vision.

Nick Petrella 11:22

So it's scaling what you've done for a lot of your professional life.

Andy Heise 11:26

Yeah. Exactly. And did you know, did you know Ben prior to receiving that email?

Penelope Sonder 11:31

Not at all. No idea.

Andy Heise 11:33

Okay. I'm also thinking like we all get weird emails, right? They're like, oh, that sounds compelling, but it's it's weird. So I'm just gonna move on to the next weird email in my inbox. What was it like that made you stop and pause and be like, wait a second, I should, I should give this some thought.

Penelope Sonder 11:47

What really made me stop in my tracks reading this email was that it exactly mirrored the I the problem that I was having in my own um advances that you know, my my own um vision uh uh for my artists. And whereas it didn't look like anything that I would envision, um, he had the same goal. And this what made uh made me uh yeah, start a conversation.

Andy Heise 12:13

Yeah. And was that like uh like you were having that particular problem at that moment, or it was sort of the this is the cont this is the the ongoing problem that I have when I'm working with artists?

Penelope Sonder 12:26

It was absolutely an ongoing problem because um in in my earliest years as a as an artist manager, I am mostly worked with um street artists. So it was all about it was not just um which collector is good for you. We started at how do we get your practice on the street onto a canvas without copy pasting a tag. So the start work, uh the work started in the in the studio, and um from there it became a whole new um idea of okay, how can we break through the art market? How do we gain visibility and even a um you know lay the groundworks for new movement here? And who are who's our audience here? Who needs to see this? And it's been an issue throughout, and is for every single artist, right? How do you find your right audience? And for the longest time, the your one gallerist, ideally, if you were lucky, um, was that man for you, right? They were doing that, but we live in a very different world now. Um, and um, this is why uh exclusive um gallery uh contracts are not a thing anymore, right? Um there's a reason for it, and artists um I do encourage artists to work with the same guy uh with uh with different galleries all over the world if they suit their needs, no question. Um, but I do think that most artists also need to run their own business out of their studio at the same time.

Artists Keep The Full Price

Nick Petrella 13:56

Yeah, yeah. I like that. Yeah. Um so I saw a video, and I don't know if it was on the NALA website or it's about NALA. It stated that 100% of the purchase price of the art goes directly to the artist. So, what's the NALA brand model, or excuse me, what's the NALA business model in our artists paying to be on the platform?

Penelope Sonder 14:20

Number one most asked question. Um, so um our whole platform and the whole idea about what we do, our philosophy is artist first, right? And if you say that, you need to back that up with um with a clear message. And our clear message is if you sell an artwork for $5,000, you should receive $5,000. Now, obviously, based on how the art market currently works and has been for the longest time, um, there is a commission structure built in. There's a middleman who also needs to live and um pay uh you know their rent for the gallery and so on. Now, we're not a gallery. We don't need to uh we don't have these middleman costs. Um and nevertheless, surprisingly, this model seems to be sustaining, um, although we have the possibility to sell online now. And we believe that's wrong. We believe that this is something that um that can be changed. So what we did, um we uh we have subscription models to Nala. Um artists pay a small fee. They can also, if they're very proactive on our platform, they can use uh Nala completely for free as well. So we have different models depending on what suits our users. And um and then we have uh a subscription model for our interior designers. It's a highly professional dashboard that they're using on the interior designer side, and um that comes at a uh at a monthly subscription fee.

Nick Petrella 15:52

Yeah, and so say I wanted to get into painting, right? And I'm I'm not very good. Would I be able to go on there and sell my not very good artwork?

Penelope Sonder 16:05

I am completely stepping away from any curatorial work at NALA. It is very difficult, or it has been at the beginning, but I have been humbled because Nala is open to absolutely everyone. Even if you decided yesterday you want to start painting, you can um join NALA. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean that our quality is compromised? No, because this is where our algorithm comes into play. Um, the user, so the buyer, the art lover on the app, he decides what he sees by his intuitive swiping. So our algorithm understands what their taste is, and that applies to everything from uh mood to style to um medium to price segments, even all kinds of different things are coming into play um when it comes to um how that selection process works and what is being recommended to you. So if you if you only really like really high-end established works, that's all you're gonna see on Nala. Um if you like the little intricate uh figurines that someone is doing in uh in the midst of Arkansas, um, you might see more of that. So it's completely judgment-free, right? And and what I meant earlier by I've been humbled is um it doesn't matter how much uh time I spend in the art world or what I studied. Um that is my I have an individual view, and my knowledge is is great in certain fields and matters, but um taste is something that I'm not going to direct.

Nick Petrella 17:40

No, no, no. So you you said something that I thought it was only visual, but you had said something, yeah, I what was it? You said Arkansas. Like uh is that what you said? Sounded like I was I did, I think so. So unless it's there's the word Arkansas in it, how would the algorithm pick up unless they pump in that information, like keywords about the artists or things like that?

Penelope Sonder 18:06

So you capture all that information um that was an example of how remote an artist could be working in the middle of the year.

Nick Petrella 18:15

Oh, okay. I didn't okay. I wanted to I wanted to make sure.

Penelope Sonder 18:18

Sorry, that's a misunderstanding. No, so um, but we also don't work with keywords. So this is what usually um uh platforms use. Um this is the most used, so when it comes to AI, my most AI uses um uh keywords in order to match and facilitate matches um and recommendations, but um we uh our algorithm works slightly different. So uh what we do is um we uh our the every single artwork that is uploaded to NALA is analyzed in terms of uh, first of all, art historical background, stylistic uh details, um, and so on. So uh all of these things will play, and then all the way down to um prices and um you know practicalities around the work. Um so it is a lot more detailed than um than what currently exists out there.

Matching Taste Without Keywords

Andy Heise 19:14

I'm glad you clarified the subscription model. Uh it's on both sides, right? Both the buyers and the artists, uh there's there's different, of course, different levels that they can they can apply. But in in general, it's a subscription model. So that's what sustains sort of the operational costs of the of the um of the platform.

Penelope Sonder 19:32

That's correct.

Andy Heise 19:33

And then and then the purchase price, it's just uh you facilitate that transaction and and pass it along to the to the artist. So what else, I mean, what is the artist, what else might the artist be giving up? Like it again, the 100% to the artist seems it seems too good to be true, right? And we we all are skeptical of things now, and it's like what it to your point earlier, it's like, oh my god, this is exactly what I've always been looking for. And it's like, okay, we've all had that feeling before, and then we get through and it's like, oh, there's the catch. Like, okay. So what is is there a catch, or what you know, what is the artist giving up when they're uploading all their images and paying their subscription and and being uh on the platform?

Penelope Sonder 20:12

Honestly, very little because in the end of the day, all that we ask of the artist is to um participate, right? So we do not provide a middleman, we don't replace a middleman, we just completely take that out of the equation. That means that the artist is responsible to proactively update their profile, update the artworks. Um, we give extensive information about how to make an artwork look good online, how to photograph, how to, and so on. And um the the more um they participate in in storytelling, in in presenting their work in the in a manner that helps the algorithm to catch it, um, the more they will get out of the subscription. Now, like I said, there's no curation, and we cannot guarantee what buyers are looking today and what they're looking for and what they're liking, right? So some people um join us and have you know uh three matches every day, and others wait for a match for an entire week. Now, you know, that that's a risk um that has to be taken. Um, but in the end of the day, what I would say is you still um have a much bigger chance to independently build a network. So it's not just about selling that one piece you still have in the corner of your studio, it's also about um, you know, building a network with collectors that you would otherwise not uh not find or that wouldn't find you.

Andy Heise 21:43

Yeah, I I I think what you said clarifies a lot of things for me. It's it's it needs to be seen as a strategy for the artist uh to utilize the platform. It's not a um a like passive income type of thing. It's not like, oh, I've got some images laying around, I'll upload them and see if, to your point, like sell the piece. That I've been moving from apartment to apartment for the last five years or whatever.

Penelope Sonder 22:04

No, it's absolutely a tool.

Andy Heise 22:05

It should be a strategy.

Penelope Sonder 22:06

Yeah. So sorry. It's absolutely a tool. It's something that uh works in the mindset of I manage my own studio. Uh I have a show next month in uh in Paris. In the meantime, I have this little series here that I'm still working on independently from the show that's already done. Do I want to test the market? Do I want to, you know, and there are people who also get commissions out of showing one piece out of a series on Nala. So there are opportunities and uh people need to try it out. And um, and we're we're starting to get really, really good stories here. It's just completely out of our hands how this process goes. So there's um, I mean, I I did curate a few little collections on the website just for some people to, you know, just to get a little bit of a understanding of what is on the platform, but ultimately um we want people to find each other.

Nick Petrella 23:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like it. There you go. Uh Penelope, we've had other online galleries on the podcast before, but none that I'm aware of use AI to recommend art. So I imagine that in the beginning, NALA's team, the founder, right, MIT trained data scientists, they had a competitive advantage. Right? And and may still have a competitive advantage. So given that programmers are losing jobs to AI, are you worried that any online gallery can generate similar algorithms by prompting Claude or any other AI chatbots to mimic what you do?

Penelope Sonder 23:40

I don't, because what we do is not just a um a simple recommender um you know programming that you can run through a um through an agent. So what it is is um it's a it's basically a combination of proprietary data and our art world expertise. And then taking that together, we have built a very, very intricate system that works for each of our of our three user groups. Um and that and every little functionality interacts with each other. The way you search is um very different to um how you would search on other pages. It's not just a keyword search, it's also an image search, it's also a voice search. So um, and the feedback that you get from your searches is also a lot more intuitive. So it's a word that we use a lot because that's generally how it feels, and it was our goal to make it feel intuitive. So ultimately, um of course, and I actually genuinely hope that um other online platforms um that sell art make their uh their search um engines better because at the moment it is very, very um simple in in it it's very difficult to find something on ATSI, for example, and because ATSI is does something really different to us. They they um are the number one platform um based on the old market model, right? So if I look for a certain artist that's represented by Gallery X, I would look on on uh ATSI, but the search um on any of those platforms is not made for that because that's not what they do, right? It's not what's but however, I do believe that even if you're not very well versed yet in the art world, if you don't know what you're supposed to like or what your taste even entails, if you don't know the keywords, you should still be able to find what you like. And I think that's one of the biggest hurdles for people trying to get accustomed to art and see what's out there without having any previous notice.

Nick Petrella 25:48

And that's and I have a question coming up that kind of addresses that, or I'd like you to address. Good.

Andy Heise 25:55

You've like you said, you spend a lot of time in in curation and helping match artists to uh buyers and that sort of thing. Has the uh recommendations that you're aware of ever contradicted your own sort of uh intuition or experience?

Penelope Sonder 26:11

Yes, every day. Every day. It is this is uh what I would have briefly meant earlier when I said I am um being humbled on a daily. Yes, absolutely, because I um I think that I, you know, ha have a quite good understanding of the good stuff that's out there. And um, and then I look at the um the most viewed um uh artworks and the most matched um you know uh content on Nala, and I'm like, oh, okay, that that's unexpected to me, right? And this is why, but this proves to me why it's so important. Um, my opinion is really completely irrelevant um in regards to what has success on the platform, and that's an amazing thing. It means that what we build is um has value.

Andy Heise 27:00

Yeah. We gotta make tweaks to the algorithm. Something's wrong here, something that's making these these bad recommendations.

Nick Petrella 27:08

You know, I'm I'm kind of wondering, because with all that all that data, you would have demographics, right? I would imagine. You'd figure out you know where people live, you know the age. Right? So you'd you'd be able to spot trends probably quicker than because you're internationally based, correct?

Andy Heise 27:29

I mean you're buyer on the buyer side inside. Yeah.

Nick Petrella 27:34

And so I'm just wondering, is there a way, and not necessarily to monetize that information, but to utilize that information. Right. I mean, okay, so you gotta bring it up.

Andy Heise 27:42

There's sure there's a plan.

Nick Petrella 27:43

I mean, we're you know, it's an entrepreneurship podcast. But um is there a way that the ecosystem as a whole could benefit from it just to just to see where the trends are going? Uh galleries, artists, you know, it's like what am I what am I trying to say? There are certain colors that are trending, right? Through the the year, the coming year, what's going on. Is there a way that you can see what's trending? And then you have a bunch of artists kind of doing that if they want to step out of there. And do you have you ever thought about doing anything like that?

Trends Data As Education

Penelope Sonder 28:24

Of course, we talk about trends all the time. So it's been very interesting for us that when we started off, that um we were talking about, okay, what where do we find the trends and how can we cater to them? That's how it started. And now this has turned around because now we are seeing patterns on NALA that we might not see on the market yet. So this is something that um is obviously wildly interesting for us. But um the goal is not to monetize it, the goal is to um make this an educational. We want to work with with museums uh and and universities and we build partnerships into all of these directions. Um, because um ultimately this is all very educational material based on how we actually interact with uh with art and how we distribute it as well.

Nick Petrella 29:16

Yeah.

Penelope Sonder 29:16

Because what we say today is trending is really just something that a very, very small number of uh gallery directors and so on have decided is trending right now. Um, because that's part of the marketing program. I've I've been I've been sitting on that chair, so I know how that works. Um, however, uh that's it doesn't it doesn't actually mean much. It's it's just a handful of opinions.

Nick Petrella 29:42

Yeah. Yeah, that's all it must be really fascinating to you as uh an art historian. What you're saying, you know, your expectations are one thing. It's just like, oh, that's interesting, and you can't discount it.

Andy Heise 29:53

Yeah, that I was sort of I was thinking about that too, about like, you know, are there other analogs throughout art history to this, to like technology coming in and changing how the market could work or might work. Um I mean, obviously the dot com era, but I mean people weren't really buying. I think people still don't really buy artwork based on just seeing it on a website, right? That they they feel this connection.

Penelope Sonder 30:20

I feel like that COVID has definitely helped a little bit during that time, as we know. That at the beginning it was print sales and then originals as well, started selling a lot more comfortably online um throughout COVID. Um, but now we kind of arrive at a time. Right now it feels quite retro where we um just on a larger scale, but we're starting to like again what we intuitively like. So I think of um, you know, galleries in the 40s in in Paris and how people genuinely had opinions and had discussions, and there weren't marketing machines, uh machineries behind that in that sense. And now after after Warhol to today, um we live in a very different world and we are being told what to like, we are being told what's trending, we're being told what is a um a status symbol, what is luxury, how do we identify through the luxury objects that we buy, and so on, right? So this is kind of falling apart now, and um, and I think that's beautiful.

Andy Heise 31:25

Well, it's kind of the other interesting thing there is like the things that are telling us what's what is luxury, what is beautiful, what is those are the algorithms telling us that. But what but what you're using is an algorithm to maybe try to try to break through some of that. You know, it's it seems a little contradictory at times, but um, I suppose it's all in how the tool is used. It's um used and it's designed.

Penelope Sonder 31:46

I mean exactly. In our case, it's consciously uh contradictory, right? We're not using the AI to um to dehumanize the field more. We're doing the opposite. We're building a tool and uh and a platform in order to intuit like from a human intuitive level um bring together the two sides and and the community as a whole.

Andy Heise 32:12

So uh I think yeah, and I think what has to start with sort of the divergent part is like, well, what is it that you're interested in? And then it can then you can use it to make the recommendations, right?

Penelope Sonder 32:22

Yeah, exactly.

Andy Heise 32:23

Because if if you just say here's what you should buy because other people think it's cool, like that's not interesting.

Penelope Sonder 32:29

And it exists.

Andy Heise 32:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's I mean, often that's how you know the with I suppose that's more the the masterworks with, you know, that's why the the demand is so high. This is what you should buy because because it's a masterwork, but that's not what we're talking about here, is it?

Penelope Sonder 32:46

Not at all. And that would be secondary market in the end of the day, and then we have a hype market that also is changing significantly at the moment. But that's not what we're feeding into at all.

Nick Petrella 32:56

Aaron Powell Yeah. You know, it's it's funny. Uh I don't know what made me think of this, but you're talking about what people like. I remember looking at a clothier website uh about how to find styles. And I said, Oh, I'll try this. Because I do where I teach, there's a big fashion school, and so I'll have fashion students in my classes. Feel like you need to upgrade. Well, or just yeah, be functional. Uh I don't have a game. It's just just functional. Anyway, and so I picked these pictures. Oh, these are the things I like. And I don't know who designed this website, but they literally sent me the same pictures that I said I liked. The exact ones. I was like, that's anyway. Um that's one way to do it. Yes. It's in a a circle. Anyway, so getting back to the show, uh, you had mentioned marketing.

Marketing Stories And Social Media

Nick Petrella 33:46

And I'm wondering, how does Nala market artist art or just the platform? How and where do you do you market it?

Penelope Sonder 33:57

We uh we market so we do digital digital marketing on social media. Um, we have a team um in a marketing team that's actually from the art world as well, so they intricately understand artists' stories and um they contact our artists, they interview them, they talk to them in depth. So we have this whole um, you know, uh storyline that we build around um artists that we choose or that come to us for features um that just are there to not just say, hey, you can buy their stuff. Um it's also to nurture conversation. And um, we've been um very successful with that on on TikTok um and on Instagram partially as well, where we just um, you know, talk about an artist, show what they do, and then they have a series of work um that we're they're currently on and um about around a specific topic. And people get very, very passionate around that. And um I think nurturing conversation um is something that is uh overdue. It's something that that we're lacking a lot. So we're trying to do that by just um not stating opinions or saying how we change, democratize the world. It's more about um how do we want to interact with each other? How do we interact with art? What does it mean to us individually? There's no right or wrong. It's just what do these things mean? Input, output, these kinds of things, just on a really basic level. And um, and it resonates, which I think says a lot, um, especially on social media.

Nick Petrella 35:37

So it's all it's all or nearly all digital. Like you wouldn't do, what is it, art basel. You don't go to hotels there and buy 10,000 plastic key cards that says Nala on it. Like you don't, you're not doing marketing like that.

Penelope Sonder 35:52

Great idea.

Taking NALA To Art Fairs

Penelope Sonder 35:53

But um we actually participated in um in a context Miami in uh December, I think it was 23. Um, so we built um we had a booth at the fair. Um so the only non-physical gallery, gallery um on uh at the on the fairgrounds. And what we did was we curated the booth in a very atypical way. And I thought that um I would get in trouble for it, quite frankly. It was like this is uh this is not going to be um received well by the uh the good old art world. Um, but the opposite happened. So it was a mixture of all kinds of different styles, artists from all over the world. There was no cohesive storyline, it was not a push to sell because we don't make a commission, right? I'm happy for my artists to sell, but it's not my business um uh goal to sell these artworks. So I can genuinely just put up on the wall what I what I want together, right? So so it's it's basically a group show of how a feed could look on Nala. And uh when we do live shows like this, um, and we we did all kinds of different things. The fair was one uh one example where we uh showed physical work, um, it's about breaking the boundaries of uh and the rules of curation, of how to build a show, and so on. And this starts the conversation towards how could a new interaction between buyer and seller and the market itself look.

Closing Thoughts And Subscribe

Nick Petrella 37:27

Yeah. It's great.

Announcer 37:31

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