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Leanna Byerlee - CEO
While traveling the world for 20 years as a Managing Director for the New York based JP Morgan on a quest to decipher economic risk, I have always left space in my luggage to bring home preciously crafted collector’s pieces that narrated the depth of local heritage. Treasured objects of art, encapsulating layers of cultural complexity, gave texture to the cold numbers of finance and planted an early seed for artistic pursuit.
My life journey has also opened a window into the world’s policy failures at a human level, and cemented my commitment to make an impact, one precious person at a time. Foraging through macroeconomic statistics can be similar to reading tea leaves; the economic realities on the ground, often came reeling to real life between meetings, gliding through market places with master artisans, hearing their voices recounting observations of the uncasual. It is ultimately those encounters and untold stories that I have taken on this new venture, stories that have come to hold a powerful ambassador in the brand, By Told. Combining artistry, humanity and compassion is the pursuit of a decades long dream, with its dawning at By Told.
Antonia Benecke - Co -Founder and Director of Communications
Berlin Mitte - A dark shadow appears behind the flickering light of the candle. A shimmer highlighting the royal blue velvet collar of my favorite coat in the corner of my room. The passing light of the day - an ode to love, and to life, veiling the mind and bringing forth my passion and my unbridled drive to express myself through fashion.
My journey begins in Berlin’s secondhand shops, searching for my most beloved ornate silk blouses and oversized blazers: my light in the dark. A quest that takes me around the world, traveling, growing, learning, and curiously self reflecting in far unfamiliar spaces. Somewhat alternative and somewhat conventional with a slight penchant for the extraordinary; I draw my inspiration from the unexpected, indulging in the beauty and diversity surrounding cultures and arts. An identified purpose, and new devotion led me to Rotterdam to study International Communication and Media and finally back to Berlin for my new chapter with By Told - a fusion of my desire, a brand, and creative space, making the intangible tangible.
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My passion for visual things has always been closely combined with the wish to explore and express things beyond the visual, and create something purposeful behind a piece of art. In my studies as a communication designer, I have the opportunity to embrace my passion for design, while documenting and visualizing stories and mindsets through different creative mediums.
Traveling and generally going through life with open eyes has taught me to find inspiration in everything that surrounds me. Being curious and seeing beauty in the smallest things and actions of life and eventually discovering that more lies behind a place, a piece of art or a human than what is visible at first sight. Looking underneath the surface and making the invisible visible is the main inspiration behind everything I create in life and something I am happy to embrace and to expand on in the creative space of By Told.
Karoline Noerbaek - Creative Director
Dr. Beatrice Miersch - Curator and Director of Artist Collaborations
I love relationships - to art, to nature and to small creatures, to intruding-poetic texts, to cultures, to amazing people – like the wonderful artists that are convening in yet a new world of By Told. I love how everything is connected and that we are a part of the world and sometimes get the chance to change it for the better – it’s a passion, and a mission which also influences my professional practice. Relational-rhizomatic thinking and a queer-feminist socio-political point of view have guided my research for my PhD in Art History, in seeking new ways for curating exhibitions.
At By Told I can live yet a new way to interact, take responsibility and pay attention to important things that need to be happening right now: How to work responsibly with our nature and artisans for traditional craftmanship, think about sustainable circular exhibition solutions and collaborating with amazing artists – it’s an empowering and embracing environment – for me like a dream come true – feel free to join this journey at By Told.
