Platform Fotografie Nederland

PFN is an association that represents the interests of professional photography institutions in the Netherlands. Of museums, non-profit galleries, producers, competitions, festivals and awards. It cooperates closely with the professional organisation DuPho and the Dutch Photo Society (NFg).

Goal: the further strengthening of the position of photography in its many manifestations, both on a political and a social level.

In addition, PFN fulfils an important role in the expansion of the national and international network of photography.

Photography is everywhere

Photography is the most important visual information carrier of our time. The digitisation of the image and its online distribution has exponentially increased the amount of available images. We are surrounded by images of all kinds: commercial, private, social, political, journalistic, artistic, documentary. Photography enters into partnerships with all of these. And these practices are often interconnected: commerce uses journalistic images, art appropriates the commercial idiom, and documentary embraces the snapshot.

Photography is nowhere

Through its frequent alliance with other disciplines, photography in the Netherlands is addressed from various angles: Journalism, Film, Design, Visual Arts, but also Economics. This has certainly contributed to the development of a great diversity of meaningful practices. But in all of these cases the partner’s agenda, and not photography itself, took the lead, as if photography as an independent (largest!) discipline would not exist.

PFN aims to put an end to this. Photography is by far the largest but - due to its versatile application - also the most complex visual medium of our time. It is essential to recognise this and to develop adequate, coherent policies on it.

Photography and visual literacy

It is impossible to imagine our society without visual communication. We are surrounded by photographic images and video. Photography occupies an important and specific place in this range of visual communication. It is in direct contact with reality but is also confronted with its distortion. This is not always easily recognised.

PFN pleads for social awareness of this. How do media and influencers work? Visual literacy ought to be an essential part of education.