Caribbean Creatives Find Power in NFTs – OZY

Whether in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago or beyond, young Caribbean artists are now drawing inspiration from their colorful surroundings, then transferring their work to virtual spaces, where they sell it for cryptocurrency.

“Anyone, anywhere in the world can print a work of art on the blockchain, and anyone, anywhere else in the world can buy it,” says Nicholas Huggins, artist and founder of the design agency based in Trinidad and Tobago. Backyard Design Co.

Around the world, established and emerging artists have turned to virtual venues to publicize and sell their creations, with some works selling in the millions. So far, Huggins has minted 136 creations as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and sold all but two of them.

This technology lends itself to creative works as each NFT is unique and can be rendered as a digital representation of a work of art. This work can then be “minted” on a blockchain. (A blockchain is like a huge database, where computers communicate with each other to authenticate transactions.) Those who buy such NFTs receive a digital token and an associated unique digital file – which can be an image file, or even an audio file if the art in question is music. In some cases, collectors also receive other benefits, such as a physical piece of art.

At first glance, it might be difficult to understand why collectors would want to own digital art. If you can’t hang a picture in your home, what’s the point? But such works become valuable for the same reason any artwork or collectible becomes valuable: because people want to buy it.

For this reason, NFTs allow artists to capitalize on their network and community, says Bonito Thompson, a Kingston-based artist who goes by the name Don Dada. As art becomes increasingly valuable as more people compete to buy it, artists who engage their personal network to publicize, acquire, and even trade their NFTs can create a buzz. . Additionally, because digital art is accessible to any collector, anywhere, artists can tap into a global community of supporters.

Perhaps contrary to what many people think of when imagining digital art, says Thompson, “What drives the NFT space is community, connection and connection between people.”

This community is growing.

SkyQuest consultancy estimates that the global NFT market will be worth $122 billion by 2028. The Caribbean will have a slice of this pie, as some enterprising artists have already found a way to sell enough work to support themselves solely through cryptocurrency .

Zoe Osborne is a Toronto-based Barbadian artist and interior designer whose digital and animated work is inspired by the nostalgia of her island home. She sells her art for the Ethereum cryptocurrency and so far is able to support herself that way.

The absence of confining borders also attracts him. Blockchain technology, she says, “allows you to have global reach and you are on par with everyone else in the world.”

Once artists conceptualize and create their work, they add it to the blockchain, which means they use a digital wallet to pay a fee to list their digital creations. The blockchain, which serves as a record of transactions and information, has created what people call Web3, an Internet relatively free from the control of behemoths like Amazon, Google and Apple. Users deal directly with each other, rather than with a multinational interface. Additionally, all transactions on the blockchain are observable by anyone at any time.

There are several different blockchains; Ethereum is the most widely used for NFTs. Huggins uses Ethereum. He sold his first piece almost a year ago for .22ETH, or around $900 at the time. “I did it more as an experiment, but someone randomly bought the piece.” Like his peers, Huggins’ work is bright, graphic and celebrates the vibrancy of the Caribbean, with images featuring street fruit vendors and stark lines of infrastructure.

Yet even though Huggins and Osborne are having some success with blockchain technology, Caribbean artists face some location-specific hurdles. The region is booming with potential, says Osborne, but the lack of ability to convert cryptocurrency into local currency through the local banking system is a problem.

“If this can be fixed, it would be a great opportunity,” she says, noting that there are artists who are excited about the potential but “only partially embrace it” because it’s hard to convert crypto. in local money.

Andrea Dempster Chung, co-founder and executive director of Kingston Creativea non-profit arts organization aiming to enable creatives in the Caribbean to succeed, agreed that obstacles remained.

“There is a general lack of technological knowledge, compounded by limited data/online access in the region and difficulty in registering with US-based banking/payment platforms,” she told OZY via email. For these reasons, she explained, only a handful of Caribbean artists have made the leap into the NFT space, and those artists have to find a “workaround” to get payments into their local bank accounts.

But perhaps local banking and governance systems will find a way to bridge this gap. Barbados, for its part, seems ready to embrace the virtual world. Prime Minister Mia Mottley appeared last year at the opening of an NFT exhibit by Caribbean culture and history group Mahogany Culture.

Jamaican artist Bonito Thompson creates images inspired by dancehall culture that incorporate augmented reality. In 2021, through the live auction platform NFT Foundation, he hit 10 artworks that sold out in six weeks. Bonito has huge aspirations, telling OZY that he works hard, striving to be recognized as “one of the best artists of modern times”. For him, using NFTs was an easy transition. “I was looking for ways to make my work stand out. It was a natural flow, and it started to explode. Regarding the NFT space in the Caribbean, I see it growing, the more the banking system makes it easier for people to integrate,” he says.

NFTs also represent opportunities for creatives beyond the visual arts. Roshaun Clarke, a Jamaican dancehall musician who goes by the artist name Bay-C, told OZY via text message that in April 2021, he became the first reggae artist to hit a musical NFT. For Clarke, the benefits of using NFTs include not only the flow of revenue, but also the elimination of an intermediary between him and his audience. NFTs are also a stronger way to authenticate ownership of content, he says.

Intellectual property protection is a concern for these artists. Some NFT communities appear to be based in the Caribbean, but actually aren’t, says Kingston Creative’s Dempster Chung. “This raises questions about cultural appropriation,” she said. Given the challenges in the banking sector, “the delay in bringing genuine Caribbean artists into the space leaves a void where non-Caribbean entities can enjoy culture,” she explained. She envisions a future in which even more Caribbean creators are aware of cutting-edge technology so they can make the best decisions for their creative future.

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