In 1950, five years after the second world war ended, I was born in Prague, the most beautiful city on Earth - in communist-controlled Czechoslovakia. I didn't have a camera as a child, yet I have a vivid imprint of this city in the grey matter of my brain - its spires, old cobblestone streets, cascading gardens and baroque churches . . .

At a graphic design school housed in an old building at the foot of Petrin Hill, overlooking the pear orchards and the presidential castle, I studied packaging technique. After the Russian invasion in 1968, I left Czechoslovakia with my parents, and we were granted political asylum in the Netherlands. We settled in The Hague, and I decided to continue my graphic design studies at the Royal Dutch Academy of Art. After graduating, I worked for Tel Design, one of the preeminent design studios in the country.