In Brief:
- The dissident artist Badiucao launched a Protest NFT Collection ‘Beijing 2022’.
- The collection includes five artworks depicting the major unfortunate events citing human rights concerns.
- Each of the artworks will be minted as 2022 editions and are priced at 0.2022 ETH plus the gas fee.
Amid calls of boycott from critics, an exiled Chinese dissident artist Badiucao also took a stand against suppressed human rights and freedom of speech ahead of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Badiucao dropped his first NFT Project, titled ‘Beijing 2022’ as a ‘Protest NFT Collection’. Though he has been actively speaking against the wrongdoings committed by Chinese Officials such as genocide and other crimes against humanity, he now decided to protest openly through his artworks.
This Protest NFT Collection includes five NFTs that focus on major events citing human rights concerns. The artworks depict “the Uyghur genocide, the Chinese government’s oppression of the Tibetan people, the dismantling of democracy in Hong Kong, the regime’s omnipresent surveillance systems, and lack of transparency surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.”
These five drawings of Olympic-themed images are Biathlon, Curling, Hockey, Figure Skating, and Snowboarding. Each of the artworks will be minted as 2022 editions and are priced at 0.2022 ETH in addition to the gas fee. Ten percent of the proceeds will go to the Art in Protest residency.
Also, collectors can write their own message of opposition to China’s government onto the blockchain. The carbon footprint of the Beijing 2022 Collection will be offset through the regen.network.
Badiucao created this NFT series as part of the Art in Protest residency, a collaboration between the San Francisco-based Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and the Human Rights Foundation in New York.
After battling censorship from China’s authoritarian regime for more than 10 years, the internet came to his aid in expressing his views. He wrote on the collection’s site that conventional venues and galleries are too intimidated to exhibit his art due to threats from Beijing.
Considering the circumstances, He said, “NFTs and blockchain provide critical financial support to dissident artists. It also serves as an essential immutable public record outside of authoritarian control and tampering.”
Renowned NFT artist Pak also used his platform to spread the word of freedom with his upcoming NFT collection ‘Censored’ in collaboration with Julian Assange. The rebellious move by these NFT artists is a living example that technology has come to the rescue when everything else is fading into chaos.
