Forging Connections with the Han Nefkens Foundation
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Giving, caring, and nurturing talent: these are the core principles on which Dutch writer and patron Han Nefkens established his eponymous non-profit foundation for video art in 2009.

As Han Nefkens told me in Barcelona, 'Giving is one of the most underrated values in society. By setting up something that I can share with others, I open myself up to the world. I can't imagine anything more enriching than that.'

In collaboration with 60 global art institutions—including internationally acclaimed museums such as M+ in Hong Kong, MAXXI in Rome, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and Singapore Art Museum as well as smaller initiatives such as San Art in Ho Chi Minh City—the Foundation has created two grants. Established in 2018, the 15,000 USD Video Art Production Grant helps emerging artists with film production costs and the 100,000 USD Moving Image Commission, launched in 2021, supports mid-career artists in taking the next step. In the case of the Moving Image Commissions, the produced work is donated to all of the participating institutions, so that the newly produced piece directly enters their collection. In the case of grants on the other hand, the work remains in the artist's possession.

The Foundation, which currently has seven active programmes ranging from production grants to commissions, operates as a kind of production hub that oversees and promotes video works by recipients from the moment they win their grant to the work's presentation in partner museums. This unique approach gives the artists unparalleled access to a far-reaching international platform, thanks to the global network of institutions involved.

The selection process for each grant is rigorous. Ten established independent curators, critics, and artists each nominate two candidates from a range of geographical regions. An international jury composed of directors and/or curators from the participating institutions and museums then chooses a winner from this shortlist.

The final selection meeting is moderated by Han Nefkens, with the Foundation's Director, Hilde Teerlinck, and Coordinator, Alessandra Biscaro, all of whom abstain from voting. 'We prefer to remain impartial for two reasons,' Nefkens clarified. 'The first is that we want to put ourselves in a listening position, to allow the directors and curators to choose the candidate that best meets the selection criteria. We prefer to facilitate the conversation freely without having an agenda. The second is that the Foundation doesn't collect the grant-winning works. We did collect them in the past, but we stopped about ten years ago. Today, it is all about forging connections—not just for me personally but between the artists and the institutions, between the artists themselves, and between the institutions. We look to give visibility to a generation of artists whose work is discussed and analysed by curators and directors from a broad range of institutions, even if they don't win the grant or the commission.'

The Foundation does not have an office. Nefkens, Teerlinck and Biscaro all work remotely. They have been digital nomads since before it was a lifestyle choice and the term became part of our everyday language. Nefkens and Teerlinck meet several times a week for highly productive 'mobile meetings', during which they stroll through the streets of Barcelona discussing current projects and brainstorming new ideas. With Biscaro they mainly catch up during grant ceremonies and at the openings of shows by the winning artists.

I recall the words of Tekla Aslanishvili, winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant in 2020, who I met while visiting her solo exhibition A State in a State at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, in 2022. Her video by the same title follows the construction of the railways from Baku in Azerbaijan to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to Kars in Türkiye, documenting the fraught political tensions that have undergirded the Southern Caucasus region since the fall of the Soviet Union. Based between Berlin and her hometown of Tbilisi, the 36-year-old artist told me that she believes the Han Nefkens Foundation takes a particularly productive and supportive approach.

'Producing time-based work and surviving as a video artist is still fraught with difficulties: production costs are high, many exhibition spaces offer awkward settings for presenting such work, and compared to other mediums, it's hard to sell. There are few structures to support the younger generation of artists who are trying to stick to their medium without compromise, meaning many potential artworks will remain unrealised,' Aslanishvili pointed out.

'One unique aspect of the Han Nefkens Foundation,' she added, 'is their thorough approach to artist selection. In my case, the decision-making process took quite some time. This is because artists are selected based on their previous work, not by judging their forthcoming project proposals, and also because the grant was established in tandem with Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and WIELS in Brussels. Once an artist has been chosen, however, there is an unprecedented level of trust placed in their work. Moreover, I think the Foundation is oriented towards granting the work suitable space for its maintenance and visibility.'

The support that the Foundation provides is acknowledged not only by its grant-winning artists but also by institutions such as Fundación La Caixa, who recognised Nefkens' significant contribution with the Art and Patronage Award in 2017. In 2019, he won the Montblanc Arts Patronage Award, the prize money for which he gave to the Afghan artist Aziz Hazara in the form of a Mentorship Grant. The following year, the Foundation received the Friends of the Arts Award from the National Arts Council of Singapore.

Suhanya Raffel, Director of M+ in Hong Kong, spoke to me about the way in which the Moving Image Commission is granted. 'There are discussions around the differences in histories, social relations, and political climates with which these local artists are working, which are always very positive because they are about the richness of the region that all of us want to engage with,' she said. 'We really value and admire the work of the Han Nefkens Foundation. I'm extremely grateful for the longevity of that relationship and how the Foundation works with artists in the region.' The inaugural collaboration between the Han Nefkens Foundation, M+, Mori Art Museum, and Singapore Art Museum, which took place in 2021, saw the grant go to the Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Trinh Thi, whose video 47 Days, Sound-less is currently on view at Mori Art Museum until 1 September.

'The Han Nefkens Foundation was the first to rigorously produce my video works in such an engaging and thoughtful way,' artist Thao Nguyen Phan told me at the opening of her solo exhibition Becoming Alluvium at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona in 2019. 'The grant has reached exceptional artists in far-flung regions with authentic and original voices. It is a way of working that is economical but widely connected and deeply engaged.'

Born in 1987 in Ho Chi Minh City, where she lives and works, Nguyen Phan won the Han Nefkens – LOOP Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2018, organised in collaboration with Fundació Joan Miró, WIELS, and Chisenhale Gallery. Becoming Alluvium presented the third and final instalment of her video trilogy, Monsoon Melody, that reflects on the evolving reality of life on the Mekong River in Vietnam in a narrative that interweaves historical fact with popular legend. The video recounts the collapse of a dam on the Mekong, which led to the deaths of many inhabitants of a remote rural village.

'After receiving the Han Nefkens Foundation Grant,' Nguyen Phan told me, 'I had the chance to work with other organisations, such as the In Between Art Film Foundation, who are also incredibly supportive. However, the Han Nefkens Foundation always has a special place in my heart because their support does not end with the grant: it has been continuous and substantial in various ways. Working with the Foundation is like having an extended family. On a personal level, I also enjoy reading Han's blog, Letters to an Imaginary Friend, where he shares his layered, complex thoughts. His openness and his gracefully crafted sentences induce a sense of comfort and closeness despite our physical distance.'

Writing, as Nguyen Phan indicates, is Nefkens' other great passion. He published his first book, Ties that Bind, in 1995. This was followed by a collection of essays, Two Empty Chairs. Aids: Closer Than You Think (2005), and three further titles, Borrowed Time: Notes on a Recovered Life (2008), The H+F Collection Ten Years On. The Making Of (2010), and Letters to an Imaginary Friend (2022), which contains a selection of the texts posted on his literary blog.

The Foundation's forthcoming publication, which celebrates 25 years of engagement in the field of art, further highlights the organisation's willingness to explore new forms of collaboration. The book will feature texts by 25 international writers and poets, each of whom responds to a video produced by the Foundation. That some writers were previously unfamiliar with the artists they wrote about and simply watched the videos online serves as another example of the Foundation's distinct approach in constantly seeking new ways to foster engagement with video art.

'Bringing people together through art and literature is my life's work. With this book, I've combined these two passions in the hope that the reader will share some of the joy that has made me feel fully part of the world,' Nefkens said, revealing the generosity of spirit that truly makes him stand out from other patrons.

'It gives me great pleasure to have created a connection between these writers and our artists,' he continued, 'even if they might never meet in person—just as they rarely meet their own publics. I am aware that works of video art, like literature and poetry, require their audiences to devote far more attention to them than the 15 seconds they might spend looking at an Instagram reel. We give these artists the most precious thing we have: our time.' —[O]