Marijn Achten

Marijn Achten is a queer POC photographer, too weird to live, and too rare to die.

 

Born in India in 1980, Marijn grew up in Bocholt, Belgium, and currently resides in Koksijde. They graduated with a Master's degree in Visual Arts from the Media, Arts & Design Faculty in Genk in 2004.

 

Marijn is the founder of Cavalier Queer, a platform dedicated to amplifying LGBTQIA+ stories and creating  representations of queer lives and futures. Through exhibitions and community-driven projects, Cavalier Queer challenges disinformation while creating space for authentic narratives, hopes and possibilities.

 

Working across photography and artistic research, her practice explores identity, belonging, memory and the fragile space between the inner and outer self. Rather than searching for perfection, their work is drawn to moments of vulnerability and self-awareness: the instant people stop performing comfort and simply allow themselves to be seen. In that tension between awkwardness and acceptance, Marijn finds a quiet and profound beauty.

 

Alongside independent artistic projects, she has worked for clients including Virgin Music, De Standaard, Het Parool, Sensoa, various magazines,.. Their work has been exhibited in musea through Europem, the US, up to 5 star hotels in India.

 

Marijn is also one half of the digital artist duo Feral Plains. Through Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, work by the duo became part of the Lunar Codex, an archive preserving contemporary art on the Moon for future generations.

 

As Samuel Beckett wrote, "I'm neither one side nor the other, I'm in the middle." It is precisely this space in between that continues to shape Marijn's work.