About O-L-A

The design of navigable worlds — through systems, stories and experiences that help us understand, inhabit and belong.

O-L-A (Off-Late-Afternoons) is the design practice of Sheena Matheiken, an NYC-based design director, filmmaker and artist. Energized by collaborative and experimental work in uncharted areas, O-L-A operates as a plasmodial collective: a network of friends across the globe with no fixed shape or place, who converge to deliver on a brief, and disband upon completion. O-L-A's favorite accomplices include Bartek Starak, Sharon Chang, Oona Eager, Mariano Spina, Radis Jensethawat, Mary Nally, and Monihan Monihan.

About Sheena Matheiken

Irish-born, Indian-raised, and Brooklyn-based, Sheena Matheiken has spent two decades at creative agencies, cultural institutions and startups working across the broad realms of interdisciplinary design, new media and film. Since 2016, they are the principal at O-L-A, with collaborators across Mexico City, Amsterdam, Gdańsk, Bangkok and Ireland.

Sheena's past roles include Head of Design at the Guild of Future Architects, an organization working towards enlightened cultural, economic, and political change; Chief of Experience Design at New Lab, an 84,000 sq. ft. space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard supporting designers, engineers and entrepreneurs working in critical technology and urban re-industrialization; and Creative Director at The Mill, the reputed trans-Atlantic post-production house, to name a few.

Sheena is also partner at ¡Bricolagista!, a subterranean filmmaking collective founded by their partner-in-crime, Monihan Monihan. Their feature films include La Voz De Los Silenciados (2014), a modern day Brechtian silent film about a deaf immigrant girl imprisoned by an NYC trafficking ring, and Sea to Shining Sea (2017), a satirical roadtrip across America offering a counter-narrative to the current disheveled state of all things red, white, and blue.

Back in 2009, Sheena conceived a 365-day style challenge titled The Uniform Project critiquing the waste of fast fashion, whereby they wore (and reinvented) the same black dress for an entire year, using strictly vintage and second-hand accessories. Designed as an online fundraiser for children's education in India, the daily blog went viral, acquiring a die-hard global following in an era predating Instagram and TikTok. The project raised over $100k for the cause, and Sheena was honored as one of Elle Magazine's Women of the Year.