When 17-year-old visionary Diana Sinclair began her journey curating NFTs, she didn’t know any other Black women artists selling crypto art. Several months and chattery Clubhouse conversations later, she and a group of Black creatives across six different countries exhibited their work on LinkNYC screens across New York City Juneteenth weekend, creating a blueprint that will surely be replicated. “The exhibition was truly magical and surreal and there’s no other way to describe it,” Sinclair says. “I was left feeling mentally and spiritually enlightened by my peers who inspire me daily and decided to take up space with me through this exhibition.”

Titled The Digital Diaspora, the project, in collaboration with Towards Utopia, included an exhibition at the Superchief Gallery, a fundraising auction and public installation at SoHo. NFTs (non-fungible tokens), a type of digital asset designed to show someone has ownership of a unique virtual item, have become the new wave in monetization and creative ownership across industries. Besides being the youngest curator within the NFT space, Sinclair is also the co-founder of herstoryDAO, an arts collective providing funding for Black women and non-binary femmes. Whilst the exhibition was in commemoration of Juneteenth, a Black American holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States, Sinclair chose to foster global Black solidarity by also acknowledging African artists' contribution to internet culture. “Throughout history and across every border, Black creatives have poured their souls into progressing culture. As economic innovators, we must empower Black creativity to reach true decentralisation,” her mission statement reads. To achieve her ethos, a portion of proceeds from the auctions will benefit both herstoryDAO artist fund and GLITS, an organisation providing housing and support for Black trans individuals.

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An NFT, otherwise known as a non-fungible token, is a digital asset representing tangible real-world artifacts like, but not limited to, music, art, videos, as well as tweets. NFTs exist on blockchain technology which underpins Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The process of selling NFTs includes creating a digital wallet and connecting it to an NFT platform like OpenSea or Foundation. This is followed by one uploading their file onto their respective platforms and then setting up an auction. Most platforms require a “gas fee” estimated at $250 paid to “mint” the NFT on the blockchain.

The digitisation of these tokens implies a simple copy-paste mechanism required to start auctioning items, when in reality, points to a complex process that often intimidates the curious artist. Moyosore Briggs, a Nigerian model, photographer and crypto artist based in London, is part of the cohort of artists exhibited during the event. Briggs first encountered NFTs as early as 2018, but only began selling NFT’s this February. “I saw that one of my favourite musicians, Mike Shinoda, was ‘minting’ his first NFT on a platform called ZORA.” The democratisation of NFTs is still imminent as membership if platforms like ZORA were operating on invitation basis until recently. “Luckily enough someone on Twitter saw my tweet about wanting to get into NFTs and sent me an invite. My luck went even further, as ZORA then covered the minting costs of my first ever NFT,” Briggs adds.

Whilst the initial setting-up process is vigorous, NFTs present transformative potential by positioning the Black artist within the roles of both curators and artists. According to Ciku Kimeria’s article for Quartz Africa, “African art sales only account for less than 1 percent of the $50 billion global art market”. Within this 1 percent, the fraction of art that is NFTs must be even smaller, as NFTs only account for 1 percent of the current global art market. “I wanted to get into NFT’s because it provides complete autonomy to an artist over their work; as to how they want it to be perceived and collected,” Briggs elaborates. Kimeria cites, “Artists will get full transparency on secondary buyers, as well as the ability to set up royalties in order to earn from their art in perpetuity.” This means that artists can be financially compensated every time their art is used or resold.

Beyond the orbit of economic empowerment, the exhibition extends to both cultural and archival significance that is seldom offered to African artists through traditional, physical exhibitions. “It’s all about representation and power,” says Dada Boipelo, a Kenyan artist and creative director based in Nairobi who also exhibited their work. “Exhibiting in Times Square was historical. Being a part of this project was a divine message communicating to me a future where Black people and Black creatives can freely express ourselves and invest back into our communities.” 

Dada’s sentiments about freedom of expression within Africa’s current climate of social media censorship explains why themes of Afrofuturism underpins hers and her fellow artists' work. According to Ayesha Kazim, a photographer of South African descent, her exhibited piece Rebirth, “is a visual representation of Black people in positions of power. Its connotations of hope is a deliberate contradiction of the turmoil of the past year including global demonstrations of police brutality.” By creating a digital footprint that can be retraced and cited, these artworks inject an unprecedented accessibility into the artworks that are otherwise neglected in national archives and museums.

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As I revisit Boipelo’s Seraphim, I am reminded that Afrofuturism isn’t a destination, but a journey towards postcoloniality. Seraphim, the persona of this artwork, is an usher of hope and messenger to the Black community. Currently, the stability of NFT space is riddled with slight uncertainty and pitfalls, with some commentators claiming that the NFT boom has gone bust—for now. One of the biggest proponents of Afrofuturism, musician Sun Ra, once said, “The possible has been tried, and failed. Now it’s time to try the impossible.” NFTs may not be the utopia that favours the journey of every African artist, but it’s a solid start.