NeueHouse is the private workspace and cultural home for creators, innovators, and thought leaders — built around four founding pillars: Community, Design, Programming, Hospitality.
For two years, I held the brand voice across five properties — NeueHouse Madison Square, Hollywood, Bradbury, Fotografiska New York, and Chapel Bar. The work spanned daily editorial direction on Instagram, the filter on programming and partner content network-wide, and long-form editorial features anchoring cultural partnerships like Leica × NeueHouse and Andy Warhol: Photo Factory.
The brand showed up everywhere — daily editorial on Instagram, programming and event capture, long-form interview pieces, partnership rollouts, and the visuals coming in from members, brands, and partners. Every post, every program, every photo had to align with the four founding pillars and the ethos behind them.
My job was to hold one voice across all of it — across surfaces and across rooms. Each surface had its own logic; each room had its own register. The throughline was making every brand moment, however small, still read as part of one body.
A four-part editorial series with Leica — four photographers, four stories that are wholly their own, one shared frame: the photographer as witness.
The Content Director and I divided the series. I handled the editorial side of the Kendall Bessent and Jessica Foley installments — interviewing each artist, transcribing the conversation, rewriting it as a NeueJournal feature, plus the rollout copy across feed, story, and newsletter.
The second installment of Witness featured 22-year-old photographer Kendall Bessent. Shot on the outskirts of Atlanta with the Leica SL2, Back Home moved the city out of the rap and club narrative most photographers reach for, and into the family and suburban life Kendall grew up in.
I handled the editorial side of the installment — interviewed Kendall over Zoom, transcribed the conversation, rewrote it as a NeueJournal feature, plus the rollout copy across feed, story, and newsletter.
NeueHouse and @leicacamerausa are proud to present "Back Home" by photographer @kendallbessent, the second installment of our new editorial series featuring original stories from four artists bearing witness to the world.
Shot mainly in the outskirts of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, "Back Home" is a visual series centered around Bessent's adolescent life, paying homage to the community he calls home, in which he continues to find solace.
NeueJournal sat down with Bessent to talk about process, his experience with the Leica Camera SL2 and the complexities of Atlanta best defined by its people, its communities.
See the full portfolio at the link in bio.
The second installment in our new series with Leica spotlighting original stories from four artists bearing witness to the world.
Shot mainly on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, Back Home pays homage to the community in which 22-year-old photographer Kendall Bessent grew up, and which he continues to call home. For Bessent, this community is a source of solace. For the second installment of Witness, our editorial series in partnership with Leica, NeueJournal sat down with Bessent to talk about process, his experience with the Leica SL2 and the complexities of Atlanta best defined by its people, its communities.
NeueJournal: Tell us about "Home Team" — the two images that are paired together, one red and one blue.
Kendall Bessent: I was inspired by the imagery of the crime drama film "Belly" directed by Hype Williams. At the beginning of the movie, Nas, DMX and their crew walk into a strip club to pull a heist — the lighting is a crazy neon blue all shot in slow motion under some heavy blacklight. I was inspired by that and the Atlanta street life. When I was a kid I remember getting designs cut into my hair, like, the Atlanta Braves or Falcons symbol. It just so happened, the day I shot those photos was the day the Braves won the World Series, and the players were repping the logo on the back of their heads. It was truly iconic. So I opted to incorporate red and blue to represent the Braves colors.
NeueJournal: What were you looking to take advantage of in terms of shooting on a Leica? Was there anything unique about using it?
Kendall Bessent: The quality on it was crazy. I fell in love with the camera. I've never shot with a digital camera that was that crisp, that saturated. On the post-production side, the colors I could play within the images made it almost like I was seeing the world in a different way. The quality is otherworldly. That camera deserves all the hype.
Excerpted from the full editorial on NeueJournal.
— Kendall Bessent, in conversation for Leica × NeueHouse
The third installment of Witness featured New York-based photographer Jessica Foley. Shot in-studio on the Leica SL2, Growing Pains paired nudes with florals — a visual essay on what it means to be alive and in process. The project grew out of a journal entry Jess wrote reflecting on 2021, a transformative year of leaving comfort behind and planting new seeds.
I handled the editorial side of the installment — interviewed Jess over Zoom, transcribed the conversation, rewrote it as a NeueJournal feature, plus the rollout copy across feed, story, and newsletter.
Like humans, flowers are dynamic and ephemeral, in a constant state of change. In her visual essay, Growing Pains, New York-based photographer Jessica Foley @fauxly puts nudes and florals together in a study of what it means to be alive and in process. "It's the small actions that we take day in and day out that define us, and that chart the path of our progress."
For the third installment of our editorial series in partnership with @leicacamerausa, NeueJournal sat down with Foley to talk about creativity, her first nude shoot and how 2021 became a year of transformative personal growth.
See the full portfolio at the link in bio.
The third installment in our new series with Leica spotlighting original stories from four artists bearing witness to the world.
New York-based photographer Jessica Foley puts nudes and florals together in a study of what it means to be alive and in process. For the third installment of Witness, NeueJournal sat down with Foley to talk about creativity, her first nude shoot, and how 2021 became a pivotal year of personal growth.
NeueJournal: Let's start with the title, Growing Pains. Where does it come from?
Jessica Foley: Growing Pains began with a journal entry reflecting on 2021. It was an extremely transformative year for me. I got out of a 6-year relationship, moved into my own place, and left a job that I had been at for 5 years. I detached from comfort and security while planting new seeds in my life and career.
NeueJournal: What were you looking to take advantage of in terms of shooting on a Leica?
Jessica Foley: I went with the Leica SL2. I love the way it captures light and color. The photos were nearly perfect straight out of the camera, so I didn't have to do too much in post-production. I haven't really seen Leicas used in-studio as much and wanted to test how the camera handles in-studio lighting. The quality of the photos and overall build of the camera are on another level.
Excerpted from the full editorial on NeueJournal.
— Jessica Foley, in conversation for Leica × NeueHouse
I authored the NeueHouse voice across two surfaces — daily on Instagram, in long-form on NeueJournal — translating the founding manifesto and four pillars into both. The voice held across registers: manifesto declarations, design observation, artist features, cultural responses, social statements. Different topics, one room.
JiaJia Fei talks translating art experiences to the digital world, her love of NASA's Instagram & discovering her activist identity.
For this installment of Creative Spotlight — NeueJournal's recurring series featuring NeueHouse members shaping cultural conversation — I sat down with JiaJia Fei, the digital strategist who's spent her career translating institutional art language for broad audiences.
NeueJournal: Art can be so intimidating for a lot of people — so how do you create accessibility? And how do we go about that digitally?
JiaJia Fei: The language that most people use when they talk about art within institutions and within galleries is really inaccessible. You go to museums, look at the wall label, and you're like, "What the hell are they talking about?" Most artists and people who work in institutions, including curators, are not good communicators. They're good at talking to themselves, they're good at talking to other people who speak their language, but they're not good at talking to a broad audience.
NeueJournal: Who is someone you follow on Instagram that we wouldn't expect?
JiaJia Fei: One social media account I've always nerded out about is NASA. The way they communicate very abstract and complicated concepts is not unlike the approaches the art world should be making when talking to a broad audience.
Excerpted from the full editorial on NeueJournal.
The position: a multi-property institutional voice can hold when every surface — daily editorial, long-form features, partnership rollouts, programming content — routes through the same four pillars and the same founding ethos. Different surfaces, different forms, different sources, but it all read as one room. That's what one voice meant in practice, and what the role was built to protect.