Paulina Akbay (*1997, Istanbul) is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, researcher and curator based in Cologne, Germany. They hold an interdisciplinary media degree (BA) from the University of Cologne and are currently completing their diploma in Media Arts at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM), having previously spent an exchange semester at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (die Angewandte). 

Their practice combines photography, film, curation and visual research. Primarily working with photography and film, Akbay produces their own works while exploring how memory, visual culture and social processes are reflected in spaces, bodies and images. Central to their work is the question of how individual experiences connect to larger political, cultural and ecological structures. Besides their artistic practice, they are an aspiring curator with a growing interest in developing their own research-based projects in the field of visual culture and archive-based approaches as an extension of their practice. They are open to collaborations with institutions and projects that take interdisciplinary work and socially relevant themes seriously and actively promote them.