In a world where cultural legacy is becoming as crucial as creation itself, KHAMSA sits down for a rare cross-generational conversation with two figures shaping the future of collecting. On one side is Nicolas Boghossian, member of the 6th generation to one of the region’s most storied jewelry dynasties, and co-founder of Ars Belga, a platform dedicated to championing modern and contemporary art. On the other is Amina Debbiche, CEO and co-founder of The Open Crate, a Dubai-based boutique art advisory and collection-management platform known for preserving, valuing, and safeguarding major private and corporate collections across the Middle East, Europe, and the US.
Together, Nicolas and Amina represent two distinct yet intertwined perspectives: the son expanding a family legacy, and the advisor ensuring its cultural continuity. Their collaboration began with documenting the extensive collection of Nicolas’s father, Albert Boghossian, and naturally evolved into guiding the next generation.
As Abu Dhabi Art approaches, KHAMSA brings both voices together for an intimate, thoughtful exchange on legacy, stewardship, collecting, and the quiet work behind preserving cultural identity.
١. What is The Open Crate today, and what specific gap do you fill for private collectors and families?
Amina: The Open Crate aka TOC is a Dubai based, UAE born consultancy advising private collectors and curating collections across the region. We oversee a significant portfolio of artworks and objects, providing collection management, valuations, and strategic advisory to some of the most influential collectors across the Middle East, Europe, and the US.
The Open Crate was created because there was a structural blind spot in the art world: collectors invest millions in cultural assets but manage them like souvenirs.
Our role is to replace chaos with clarity and opacity with intelligence. We built an institutional grade system that turns a collection into structured cultural capital, documented, valued, protected, and usable. We bridge heritage, finance, and technology so that a collection isn’t just admired but properly governed. Families, family offices, and private institutions work with us because we make their cultural capital traceable, protected, and liquid. The Open Crate isn’t a luxury add-on, it’s the new standard of responsible ownership.
٢. Between Boghossian Jewelry and Ars Belga, where do art, commerce, and heritage intersect in your role?
Nicolas: Jewelry and art have always been a part of our family. If I look at our jewelry brand, creativity is deeply rooted into an artistic background. Our Foundation’s Art Deco building embodies an artistic and cultural dialogue between east and west. I think the intersection lies in passion, creativity and the commitment to cultural exchanges. My role is to continue that exchange, as best as I can:
Preserving what’s rare, revealing what was overlooked, and ensuring that beauty remains part of a shared legacy.
٣. Between heritage and technology, where does The Open Crate position itself?
We sit precisely where preservation meets innovation. Heritage gives meaning, technology gives continuity, and collectors need both.
Amina: Our clients want to know that their legacy will outlive them and that requires structure. We bring precision where the art world still runs on intuition: cataloguing, data integrity, transparency and long-term relationships. Being UAE-born and based in Dubai allows us to serve a region that is building a cultural ecosystem at unprecedented speed, and our role is to ensure private stewardship reaches the same standard as its museums.
٤. What single moment best captures the transition from Albert to Nicolas?
Nicolas: It’s the one we’re in now: I’ve recently started working under my father’s mentorship, learning from his decades of experience in jewelry. At the same time, through Ars Belga, I’m introducing him to artists and art movements he didn’t necessarily know about.
٥. How did your collaboration with the Boghossian family begin, and what was the first concrete project you tackled together?
Amina: Our collaboration began 6 years ago with the stabilization of Albert Boghossian’s collection, a remarkable, multi-decade body of art. The challenge was transforming decades of passion into an organized, future-proof archive. As Nicolas grew more active, our work evolved from cataloguing into generational strategy: building a digital backbone that carries the collection forward.
What is unique about families like the Boghossians is that legacy is not an idea they talk about, it is something they actively build and our role was to make sure it’s protected, traceable, and transferable.
٦. What top three systems or processes actually protect a collection?
Amina: First, rigorous documentation, complete, centralized, and verified.
You can’t protect what you can’t prove.
Second, valuation cadence, annual or event driven; disciplined and defensible. Third, governance, clarity around movement, access, insurance, and lending. Most collectors have passion; very few have structure. Our job is to turn passion into an asset class. At The Open Crate, these are not abstract ideas; they are the lived systems behind every collection we oversee.
٧. What message about legacy and collecting do you want Abu Dhabi Art’s audience to take away?
Amina: That legacy isn’t built through ownership alone, it comes from structure. Collecting without systems is temporary; structure is what makes it endure. Abu Dhabi Art becoming Frieze next year is a major shift, it opens the door to a wider public and signals a new cultural chapter for the UAE. This region wants to build the next global art ecosystem, and private collections must adopt the same discipline as public institutions. It is cultural responsibility.
Nicolas: Legacy and collecting is about cultural exchange driven by passion. In the Gulf, this feels especially alive right now: new museums, fairs and collectors have expanded the story of art far beyond its traditional centers. This region isn’t just joining the conversation, it really has the potential to reshape it.
Our booth, which is around the theme of Nature, brings together artists from different continents who all sought to push the limits of art. Some offer intimate, almost narrative depictions of landscapes and daily life, while others explore nature through abstraction, energy and material. My hope is that visitors feel the beautiful dialogue between these artists and participate in that dialogue themselves.
٨. Point us to one section or presentation at Abu Dhabi Art that makes legacy in action instantly click.
Amina: The selection of artists this year bridges generations and geographies, capturing precisely what legacy looks like in motion. You will see material intelligence, spiritual abstraction, and regional continuity appear side by side, from Farid Belkahia and Fatiha Zemmouri to Marina Perez Simao, Haiying Hu, and the new wave of contemporary voices.
When work echoes each other across decades and cultures, you understand instantly how a collection becomes a narrative rather than a list of names.
٩. If someone in their early 20s wants to begin collecting, what single practical action should they take this week?
Amina: Walk the fair slowly, twice. The first round is to absorb, the second round is to notice what keeps calling you back. Then speak to the gallery, ask basic questions, and make one intentional decision. Good collecting starts with connection, not pressure. And the moment you buy your first piece with clarity rather than impulse, you begin building your eye and your discipline simultaneously.
Nicolas: I would recommend to start buying books about art and visiting museum exhibitions. Then, to buy books on artists you like, to understand the depth of a single practice hidden behind artworks on display.
The best way to start forging a good eye!
١٠. A simple routine beyond Instagram, where to go, what to log, and how to reflect.
Amina: Visit one exhibition a week and spend time with one artwork, not the whole room. Take a photo, write three sentences about what stayed with you, and log the artist and gallery.
After a few months, patterns reveal themselves: materials you are drawn to, palettes you revisit, regions you gravitate toward. Taste does not arrive fully formed; it emerges through attention and repetition.
١١. Should young collectors narrow focus or follow instinct?
Amina: Instinct is essential but discipline protects you from drifting into randomness. Track what resonates and why, materials, regions, philosophies. Over time, themes emerge naturally, and that becomes your focus. Focus chosen too early becomes a cage, focus revealed through your own data becomes identity. The key is reflection, not restriction.
Nicolas: I would not recommend a young collector to narrow their focus too quickly. On the contrary, I would start to embrace global art history before being able to approach a local scene with maturity.
١٢. Under 2000 dollars, what are the best categories to learn with, and one red flag to avoid?
Amina: Start with editions, works on paper, or small sculptures. These categories teach you about condition, provenance, edition structure, and gallery practices, the foundations of connoisseurship. The red flag is anything undocumented. If you would not feel confident handing it to an insurer or a registrar, it is not a smart purchase.
Good habits at 2000 dollars protect you at 200000 dollars.
١٣. Finally, one habit a collector should adopt that protects cultural and financial value long term.
Amina: Centralize everything, invoices, certificates, images, valuations, condition reports, even informal confirmations. Disorganization quietly erodes value faster than any market fluctuation. The collector who knows what they own, where it is, and what it is worth is operating at a different level. That mindset, structure as an act of care, is the foundation of The Open Crate and the reason our clients stay with us for years.
Nicolas: One habit a first-time buyer can adopt now that protects cultural and financial value long-term is exchanging with his good art advisor. Someone that listens to your taste and instincts while bringing some rigor (verifying provenance, condition, pricing and aligning with a long-term goal). I think this partnership protects these values.
And of course, start working with The Open Crate early on!
