PLACE DINA JEZDIC
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Dina Jezdic is an art writer and curator who is helping other creatives make their art pay as director of Toipoto, a creative career development
programme. Born in Serbia, she immigrated to New Zealand as a teenager, left “forever” as a young adult, and only came back for love. Jezdic lives in Auckland with her partner Eddie Giesen and their children. DINA: We rent a house in a really cool part of Eden Terrace, Auckland, a very steep hill. We moved here about nine years ago: long-term rentals, it’s kind of like serial monogamy.
When we first moved here, our son Berlin was just born, our daughter was around 10, and we’ve lived here ever since. Now we also have another daughter, Frida, who’s 6.
Lots of families live around here. Gangs of children constantly go from one house to another. We lament that whole idea of the urban lives of children, that they’re not free-ranging and going outside. That is not the case for our kids.
[My partner] Eddie’s a musician, jewellery-maker, and a carpenter. We’ve been together coming up 12 years and we met in Berlin, hence the name of our son.
I was doing a PhD in medical neuroscience at Humboldt University and Ed was visiting for the second time. His band, called An Emerald City, was spending a lot of time in Europe trying to break in and see what they could do.
One of my oldest friends, Rob, was in the band and he introduced me to Ed. Honestly, they were only around for 10 days, and we thought it would be a hilarious thing to have a cute fling. After three days, we were so in love it changed our lives completely.
We didn’t know each other that well, but this was so intense that we had to just do something. I thought: “OK, I’m going to come and live with you in New Zealand.”
My sister and parents and I had immigrated to New Zealand in 1995 when I was 14. Then I left after my masters to do my PhD, and lived in Prague and Berlin for seven years. I thought I’d make Berlin my home forever.
Ed was living in Auckland, so we came back here. That started my journey of working with artists and creatives.
It made sense because my life was so based around research, and I think research is very creative: You’re at the point of discovering new things. I often feel like I have brought my critical, analytical side to the creativity, but the creativity was always part of my research.
It’s an old villa, three-bedrooms upstairs and all the living downstairs. There’s a light conservatorytype space and then the rest of the house is very dark. It’s got working fireplaces, and it’s quite magical during the winter.
I made a conscious choice to send my children to the bilingual unit and learn te reo Māori at school. If I couldn’t pass on my mother tongue, I thought at least they can learn the languages of this country.
What’s awesome though, because of my children’s love for languages now, and their understanding of what culture is … my son came to me and said: “I’d love to learn our language, Mum.”
So now they’re going to Dalmatian Club on New North Rd. Every Friday they go and have lessons and they’re loving it. They’re so keen. They think it’s like their own secret language.
I help them to do their homework and practise with each other, and they also talk to my parents in Serbian, which is wonderful. We have this new thread. For the first time in a long time, I’ve started thinking about taking them home.
Working from home in my own office has changed my life. To have your own space is incredible. It’s something about what you’re surrounded with.
I‘ve got lots of plant, lots of art, so many windows. I’ve got a turntable and stereo system. I’ve got books for Africa. It’s all the things I love in life.
Some say it’s bad not to be able to switch off and walk away but I love that. My job is so enriching and rewarding I don’t feel like I need to get away from it.
At Toipoto, our main aim is to increase the sustainable life for artists. We try to demystify where the opportunities are, where the funding is, what money you can get.
Being an artist is diabolically hard. We’re consumers of art all the time, but artists are often forced to give it up for free.