H+F
Han Nefkens started to collect art in 2000. The H+F Collection, named after himself and his partner Felipe, is in long-term loan to various museums in The Netherlands and abroad. Nowadays Han Nefkens is not only active as a collector but also as an initiator of international art projects, often in collaboration with museums and other art institutions.
Fundació Han Nefkens
The Han Nefkens Foundation is a private non-profit organisation that was set up in Barcelona in 2009 with the aim of promoting the production of contemporary artworks. The mission is to stimulate artistic creation in Barcelona by offering international artists an opportunity to create artworks and interventions in the city, and to promote other fields of contemporary creation.
Han Nefkens
According to Han Nefkens, sharing is the antidote to loneliness, and he does so through his artistic and anti-AIDS projects and his writing. In 1995, he made his debut with the autobiographical novel Bloedverwanten (“Parents”), which was followed by Twee lege stoelen (“Two empty chairs”, 2006) and De gevlogen vogel (“The bird flew”, 2008). Nefkens also writes short pieces, “vignettes”.
Pep Dardanyà
(Caldes d’Estrac, 1961)
Pep Dardanyà is a visual artist, anthropologist and cultural administrator. He is currently director of Can Xalant, Centre for Creation and Contemporary Art. Pep Dardanyà uses video, photography and installations to create interventions that disrupt the viewer’s awareness in some way. His works initially refer us to the gaze and the nature of the artistic process, and then to the complexity of the social processes involved in phenomena like illegal migration, exploitation (social, sexual, etc.) and the marginalisation of others.
www.pepdardanya.com
PARTICIPAte in on the outside looking in with the work:
Lab. 50 (2008 – 2009)
Photo/Video installation.
‘Lab. 50’ takes the form of a peculiar kind of travel diary, in the mode of an ex-voto offering. The destination is the city of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo– a former Belgian colony– which once housed a cutting-edge laboratory for research into the polio vaccine… Lab.50 explores the destitution of Africa and its vulnerability to AIDS, which is seriously affecting the continent’s already-weakened economic and social structures.
Acknowledgements: Carme Altayo, Veterinaris sense Fronteres, Barcelona. Oliver Maloba, Espace Culturel Ngoma, Kisangani. Miguel Ángel Martínez, Fundació IrsiCaixa at Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, Barcelona. Juana Díez, Virology Group, DCEXS, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.