The Obsidian Collection aims to be the Getty Images of the Black Archive with a twist on the Metaverse.
Founded in 2017, the goal of the Obsidian Collection is to build a vast view of both past and present black history, while at the same time commercial licensing and now NFT. This means that Obsidian not only chases the photos of famous photographers like John Tweedledum with whom he worked, but also tries to link with photographers like Howard D. Simmons. Chicago Sun Times When ebony..
“In many cases, the images displayed by mainstream institutions have a fairly negative story, with a lot of poverty and suffering,” said Angela Ford, executive director of the Obsidian Collection. ARTnews.. “It’s not the sum of our beings.”
The Obsidian Collection, which jointly celebrates the celebration of the NFT.NYC conference with Juneteenth, announced this week a partnership with Robas, an artist equity company developing blockchain services. Their first drop was premiered last Sunday in 15 his NFT collection of photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr. of John Tweedledum, who visited Chicago in 1966.
For Ford, the advantage of NFTs is that they can help generate funding for artists.
“With decentralized technology, current or future revenue goes directly to the owners of these archives,” Ford said. “It empowers these owners and their descendants directly with the diaspora’s economic and curation power. It empowers them.”
She also said that NFTs will allow you to tap on specific collector bases. This is a point commonly expressed by space proponents.
“This technology also involves a strong community,” said Lobus co-founder Lori Hotz, not only for NFT collectors, but also for the younger generation of Internet users.
Ford explained that he set out to create a Getty-like portal for black images before adjusting her vision more positively. After all, the current distribution of images online is largely independent of commercial licenses. In Ford’s view, black creators are at the forefront of the creator economy and are ready to benefit from the web3 shift.
“Blacks have always thrived in a decentralized environment, but there was no hard work of coaching or supervision,” Ford said.
At the same time, much of Ford’s work involves working with older generations as it seeks to build obsidian image archives while explaining these web3 strategies.
At a dinner hosted by Lobus and Obsidian Collective at Harlem’s restaurant Red Rooster, Ford talked about a conversation with a photographer.
“He was over 75 years old, never married, had no children, but he has over 100,000 images taken in his life and I want people to see them,” Ford said. I mentioned it at the dinner party. “He said,’Listen, I don’t care that my cousin may make some money from now on.’ What he wanted was that his story was told. was.”
By word of mouth, Ford has sought to find these elders who have seen much of history. Obsidian Collective hosts certain previously unavailable photos, such as images of Tuskagee’s Air Force and the Ru-Jac Charm School, Chicago’s Black Etiquette School. Thus, Ford’s new company is one way to preserve history.
“These are images that haven’t been seen for decades, literally between 40 and 80 years, because they aren’t digitized,” Ford said. “If you don’t get this information in the future, you’ll lose it.”
