How indigenous artists could preserve their own culture with NFT?

Patr!ck Ḧuang
FormosArt.io
Published in
3 min readFeb 8, 2022

We are witnessing the unique indigenous cultures, mother tongue, paintings that represent life, traditional arts and crafts, ancient songs and stories, and so on are disappearing. Have you ever wondered is there any way that we can literally save and keep those invaluable cultures?

What if there is a way we could save these valuable indigenous cultures and art forms as well as lead them to advance into the technological world? Perhaps the blockchain and NFTs technologies are the answer and yet, make it easier for all of us to spread and inherited the legacy.

Aboriginal style dot painting
Indigenous style dot painting

First of all, what is a blockchain? Why is blockchain a good channel to preserve culture?

Blockchain is a technology that realizes trust decentralization through a consensus algorithm. You have the power to control your asset, there is no third party to restrict you from using them.

The data stored on the blockchain is permanent and transparent, you can verify or check it at any time, no one can tamper with the data.

Also, decentralizing the authentication process into an open ledger (blockchain) means that people can trust strangers to buy and sell assets. The value is no longer rely on individual sales, but the art itself.

What is NFT?

NFTs are tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique items. It allows us to tokenize anything from art, collectibles to real estate…etc.

It is secured on the blockchain — meaning no one can modify ownership records or copy/paste new NFTs.

Traditionally it can be difficult to verify the original provenance in the art market, the beauty of NFTs is that no matter how many times the art has been traded, you can still trace the original creator.

Aboriginal artist dot painting in Derby Kimberley Western Australia

So, how can we use NFTs to preserve the indigenous culture and advance its digital value across the world?

The inheritance of many aboriginal cultures has no written records, often through the old tale, different art forms, or dance interpretations.

NFT is a perfect medium for expressions whether it’s pictures, articles, books, music, digital art, video or 3D. What is more exciting is that it allows creators to add more value to the NFTs. Such as:

  • Allowing collectors to join special traditional celebrations.
  • Meeting the creators.
  • The digital ID of physical artwork.
  • Unique event access.
  • Service through the integration of virtual and real.

I can go on but the point is that NFT is truly an amazing way for creators to approach the world 24/7 as blockchain is a public global channel. NFT made it so much easier for creators and collectors to establish relationships with each other.

Also, creators have the right to decide whether to keep the copyright or release it to the collectors. Some successful projects allow collectors to use the NFTs for commercial, it provides opportunities to promote the traditional culture into the mainstream.

Creators can set up the percentage of royalties when they create NFTs and receive it from each transaction, this definitely is a big support for the creator’s community.

The younger generation of indigenous artists can combine the rich cultural heritage and technology to carry out various experimental and innovative ideas.

NFT is also an effective method to create a personal brand. You have a better way to build consensus, get along and interact with the communities that support creators as well as share the resource from all over the world.

The only limit is your own imagination.

Now, it’s the perfect time to harness NFT technology to pioneer a new era and spread our priceless cultures into the virtual world. Imagine the blockchain dominated by indigenous art forms?

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