First of all, welcome to The Obscurian, our Substack space. We can’t disclosure too much just yet but we encourage you to hit the subscriber button and follow a bunch of exciting content showing up here soon enough.
The year of 2023 was a tough year across the web3 ecosystem. It wasn’t different on our dear art org&community. It took us a lot of mental and physical gymnastics to keep the wheels turning but we successfully did it and we’re proud to bring you a highlight of our achievements throughout the year. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, supporting, fostering, curating amazing artists and artworks.
So, here we go:
Events
The year was full of Art and NFT related events, we tried to get artist from the community to all of the main ones, here’s what happened:
NFT NYC
In April we participated in an side event of NFT NYC showcasing 100 ARTISTS curated by @WimVanCappellen & @taiimazz at the @thelowerdraw gallery at Black Box Art Festival organised by @briancattelle & @ShearmurB.
Check our thread with all highlighted artists.
NFT Paris
We were invited by @nft_paris to be a curator, the selected artworks were displayed during NFT PARIS on 24th & 25th of February curated by @taiimazz & @WimVanCappellen.
Check our thread with all highlighted artists.
NFT Bali & NFT Beijing
In May 2023 we were able to showcase 10 incredible artists Curated by @WimVanCappellen & @taiimazz at NFT BALI at @sssgallery.
And in August we did it again! In partnership with @sloikaxyz, @musehiveart, @Thewickedhunt, @sssgallery and @joynxyz, we showcased 20 incredible artists in BALI and BEIJING again curated by Wim and Taimaz.
Check our thread with all highlighted artists.
NFC Lisbon
We partnered with @makersplace for the AI ART HACKATHON at @NFCsummit in Lisbon in June 2023. We held an AI Art contest, @TheDigitalCoy won the contest & has granted the travel expenses to Lisbon facilitated by our partner @LordTruffington.
Portuguese Sea
We partnered with @B_side_NFT for the launch of 'Portuguese Sea' a poem by Fernando Pessoa interpreted by 25+ artists on Foundation Worlds.
Check our thread with all artworks.
We still have pieces available, consider supporting us and artists by collecting a piece of Portuguese Sea on Foundation.
Carousel Curated
The iconic slide archive project created by @Felix_Denomme & @OliverWDahl continued it’s journey, in 2023 we had 3 drops with our guest curators Alejandro Cartegena (@halecar2), @WimVanCappellen and Anna Condo (@a1111ac011d0).
Check our thread with all the submitters.
We still have pieces available, consider supporting us and artists by collecting a piece of Carousel Curated on Foundation.
Hope for Iran
we proudly introduced the 'Hope for Iran' collection, a heartfelt initiative aimed at supporting Iranian artists during a challenging and turbulent period.
Check our thread with all the submitters.
We still have pieces available, consider supporting us and artists by collecting a piece of Carousel Curated on Foundation.
Uncanny Valley
We launched Uncanny Valley collection during the AI boom, marking a significant milestone as our inaugural AI collective drop, a standout highlight of 2023.
Check our thread with all the artworks.
Augmented Humanity
In June 2023, we dropped our Augmented Humanity collection on curated by @WimVanCappellen & @taiimazz including both photography & AI with 20 artists.
Check our thread with all artworks and artists.
We still have pieces available, consider supporting us and artists by collecting a piece on Foundation.
Tania Franco Klein & Obscura Curated on MoMa
In October, Museum of Modern Art acquired 16 artworks from Mexican photographer Tania Franco Klein’s collection ‘Subject Studies’ produced with a grant given by Obscura thorugh the Obscura Curated Comission (launched in 2022).
Community Spotlight
As a means to provide more visibility to artists on the space, we launched on the last quarter an initiative called Comunity Spotlight, going on biweekly through an open call tweet where our curators Gill Pedroso, Taimaz and Wim pick from 10 to 15 artists to be showcased on a specific post, and on the GM posts for a few weeks.
Here’s the video for our latest edition, Community Spotlight #7.
Thank you, Great 2024 & let’s Free mint!
And finally, we want to thank you all for being a part of our journey throughout 2023, wish you all a great 2024 full of light, art and achievements and invite you to celebrate with a free mint with the piece “Toad Worship”. Photography by @WimVanCapellen and digital edit by @gillpedroso, available on Zora.
Keep your eyes peeled to our socials and subscribe to The Obscurian. A lot of exciting new projects for this year to keep fostering art & community, empowering artists and curating photography on the web3 ecossytem. Thank you Obscurians!