The Eyes  #10 : Marina Paulenka in Amsterdam

“Amsterdam is the only city that compares to Zagreb. I can bike, buy organic produce at the farmer’s market, go out with my friends … It’s a home away from home.“

It does seem that Marina Paulenka isn’t sorry she moved. The 34-year-old is taking over from Emilia van Lynden as Art Director of Unseen, the fair that shows what you can’t see anywhere else. “I can’t wait! This will allow me to further my curatorial activities in a new environment, with a young team who can teach me so much.” When we meet her at the Place du Forum in Arles, it’s barely 10.00 a.m., and hearing her tell her story in her deep voice and Slavic accent feels like listening to a song. She has raspberry lips, long black hair and a twinkle in her eye. She grew up in Vinkovci, in eastern Croatia, near the Serbian border. She did two master’s degrees at the University of Zagreb, one in Graphic Design and one in Photography, before teaming up with friends to create, at the age of only 22, an association called Organ Vida. Its mission? To promote photographic creation in a country that has no history: “We were young and we had no master. What we know, we learned by observation.”

Read the interview in full in the 10th issue of The Eyes, to be published in November !