Founded in 2009 by Dutch writer and collector Han Nefkens and directed by Hilde Teerlinck, the Han Nefkens Foundation focuses on grants and commissions that support the production of video art. Nefkens, who trained as a journalist in the US and France, working for more than a decade as a radio correspondent in Mexico, turned to collecting contemporary art after encountering the immersive video installations of Pipilotti Rist. Nefkens’s philanthropic activities in art, funded with family money (his father was an architect who later turned to commercial real estate development), have consistently had a public dimension; he began purchasing works in 2000, with the aim from the start of acquiring artworks for museums. His H+F Collection, featuring a range of media, began making long-term loans and eventual bequests to museums across Europe. He also began the ArtAids Foundation in 2006, commissioning artists to make work that helped to raise awareness and support those living with HIV and AIDS. (Nefkens himself found out he was HIV-positive in 1987.) Both these organisations have since made way for the activities of the Han Nefkens Foundation, which in the past has additionally supported fiction writers, but currently focuses exclusively on video art.