NFTs and Blockchain Bridge Ethiopia’s Past and Present in New Art Exhibition

America's first major institutional art exhibition in decades will conclude its year-long tour at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) with a grand finale featuring NFTs.

In June, TMA announced blockchain-based Ethiopian art collective Yatreda would be its second digital artist in residence, following Nigeria-based non-fungible token (NFT) star Osinachi in 2023.

This year Yatreda will organize a special installation in TMA “Ethiopia at the crossroads”.

Yatreda's contribution called “Yatreda's House” features credits of some of the most famous NFTs and also starts a new series. Together, it connects historical artifacts found at the “Crossroads of Ethiopia” with outstanding works of art from Ethiopia today.

Yatreda has become involved with TMA, learning about Toledo's expanded residency program this year, discussing the details of the “Yatreda House” with TMA administrators, and mentoring local artist Jordan Bushur. This fall, his residency will conclude with a Christie's sale featuring Yatreda – and Bushur's first mint works.

The announcement that Yatreda will be this year's digital artist-in-residence comes a week after TMA unveiled the new TMA Labs, a department to support information and operational efficiencies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality and Web3.

“Color and Skin” will become “Blockchain and Video”.

As a collection, Yatreda compiles Ethiopia's often-overlooked history and national pride into black-and-white, epic photographs captured entirely on Ethereum.

Ethiopia is one of the two African countries that were not colonized. Every year Adwa Victory Day celebrates their victory over the colonialists.

However, Yetreda's founder and leader Kia Tadele noticed that although Ethiopians have a lot of pride, there is little effort to record the country's history in the presence of other nations.

Treda's name is an Amharic portmanteau of “fence” and “debt,” a name Tadel met as a girl when a psychic predicted she would grow up beautiful. Tadel has done modeling and photo editing in Addis Ababa.

Together with her sisters Roman and Susie, her fiance and friends, she directs Tadele Yatreda in filming and documenting scenes that connect Ethiopia's past with its present and future. The resulting videos will be donated to a foundation or sold at Christie's.

Yatreda offered one of the top lots in Christie's NFT sale during Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2023.

Historian Roman has researched Yatreda's photographs for historical accuracy. Suzy designs the costumes that the Yatreda cast members wear for each shoot.

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The end result is a present-day Ethiopian wearing a crown and a timeless spirit of remembrance – a nostalgia that evokes the beauty of the Amharic word. The slow motion animation of each piece of art gives it a sense of breathing. In this complete form, Yatreda's work should exist digitally, not as prints.

“Instead of paint and leather, our modern canvas is video and blockchain,” Tadele told Cointelegraph in an email, explaining how his work is moving Ethiopian art forward.

Competition combining web 3 and traditional art

For their part, TMA is not the first museum to explore the emerging intersection of Web3 and art.

Tadele told Cointelegraph that she once met Lady Catoid, the famous Web3 art developer, and learned all about her work curating NFTs for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

“Some time ago, MoMA [New York’s Museum of Modern Art] They invited us to learn more from us artists before joining Web3,” she says. “I cannot compare these museums. I am happy that all these institutions are expanding, connecting and making us stronger together.

However, TMA is the first museum to feature a Metaverse exhibit in Decentraland 2021. It is believed to be the first institution to host a digital art residency for NFT artists.

TMA's Assistant Director of Strategic Initiatives Sophie Ong told Cointelegraph that TMA chose Yatreda for this year's program because “Ethiopia is at a crossroads.”

Acclaimed by Hyperallergic, The Wall Street Journal and others, the show encompasses 2,000 years of Ethiopian history in 200 works of art – including artifacts from the Kingdom of Axum (first millennium AD) by contemporary Ethiopian-American art star Julie Mehretu. .

The exhibit went on display at the Walters Art Museum in December 2023 and is on view at the Peabody Essex Museum through this weekend. His final engagement will be at TMA from August 17 to November 10. TMA's version alone features “House of Yatreda”, featuring credits from the collective's greatest works such as “Queen of Sheba” (2021). A series of four portraits of Yatreda, Queen Prime Minister of Abyssinia, whom the Ethiopians call Makeda.

“When we start building [Abyssinian Queen]There were no historical photographs, no drawings, nothing anywhere to find the reference,” Tadel said of making the series. “It made me more interested in approaching this artwork as a collective memory.”

The living space is growing

At this point, Yatreda spent weeks in Toledo meeting with the community, exploring the museum's treasures and painting the “Yatreda House” – which even hosted coffee ceremonies, especially the sacred event that created the culture of coffee in the country.

At the same time, the TMA has been working with contractors for a year to develop a platform for unwitting strangers to collect artwork and other NFTs that Yatreda and Bushur drop.

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Blockchain has certainly paved the way for artists outside of the machine to sell temporary works, but Tadele sees the technology's ability to create ownership as perhaps its biggest advantage.

“A ‘place' should be more than a social media platform with posts and likes, it should be like a home. “A true house of art must be sustained, future-proofed, and owned.”

“Every time we start painting, the support I get from others online boosts my confidence and motivates me to dedicate my life to it because it brings out the best in me.”

Now, it remains to be seen whether Toledo will become America's next Web3 hotspot.