JANUARY 5TH, 2022

We experience life as a series of moments. They can last a second, a year, or any length of time where some reality was true. For a marginalized individual, a moment can last as many years as it took them to find a way out of poverty. A moment can last as long as it takes to breathe through a trigger. A moment can last as long as the second it takes to capture a simple beauty. Artists attempt to encapsulate these moments within one piece of work through multiple forms, but perhaps one of the most delicate mediums, and true to the concept of a moment in one of its technically smallest measurements, is photography. In Chicago, a moment can last as long as it takes to get from one neighborhood to the next, to experience a shift in environment and, thus, to arrive to the city’s first NFT gallery, imnotArt’s first all-women photography exhibition, entitled BALANCΞ.

A point I frequently hear people make when they observe or participate in NFTs is that the practice, to sell or auction off our art on a blockchain, has freed many artists from the cycles of financial strain that we have prescribed as a given to many who choose to create for a living. In another respect, what the statistics show us is unsurprising. In a mostly anonymous space, NFT sales to artists who publicly identify themselves as women make up less than 10%. It turns out that collectors are, for the most part, actively liberating artists who publicly identify as men. In a space that is rife with unsold pieces, it can be saddening to perceive, and marginalized individuals deserve relief from our often harsh realities.

Since one of the popular conceptions of the NFT space is that it has allowed many artists to achieve the financial independence that we need and deserve, imnotArt has taken this concept to heart by prioritizing women NFT artists. The team has worked to build a platform and has subsequently provided some of this aforementioned relief to marginalized artists within the space.

Relief can look a number of ways, and balance is a concept that can hold multiple definitions at once. Brittney Pierre is a proponent of these ideas as, in order to level the playing field for Black women artists like herself, she vocally advocates for them, onboards them, and crowd-funds to pay their gas fees, which, through Ethereum, can be pretty pricey for people who are already struggling financially. When I spoke to Brittney, one of the two women who both curated the artists and showcased their photos in the BALANCΞ exhibition, she reminded me that one of the most effective ways to achieve this liberation on a collective level is, simply put, to give marginalized people, and especially Black women, money. The web3 space, at large, provides those who have the funds with a multitude of opportunities to support marginalized people financially, and imnotArt’s all-women photography exhibition is an example of that praxis.

@pamvoth

@Ang_Ramm

@redactedoride

@redactedpride

@naibovisuals

@burnish

@jlindsayfilm

@burnish

@Taesirat_

@mksneepsnorp

@crystaldstreet

imnotArt held a Twitter Space every day, for the nine days that led up to the exhibition’s opening, where they interviewed each photographer, and further embodied the show’s title, BALANCΞ. They asked each of the artists what the word means to them and provided them with the platform to tell the stories of the pieces they chose. The gallery showcased the works of Burnish (who proposed the curation idea to the gallery and recruited Brittany), Brittany Pierre, Angelica Ramirez, Crystal Street, Judy Lindsay, May Naibo, MK Raplinger, Taesirat Yusuf, and Pam Voth. All of the artists are located in the United States, aside from Taesirat, who is located in Nigeria. Further, the imnotArt team, through these individual spotlight spaces, treated each photo in the exhibition as precious and as indispensable as the pieces deserve. The event and its rollout simply felt right, the way I’ve heard artists describe their transition into the NFT space to be.

Regardless of how each photographer conceptualizes balance, a commonality between their perspectives is this sort of yearning for what seems ideal or perfect, which is a facet of human nature. Both Angelica and Burnish, who I had the chance to speak to in real life, described their entry into the space to fix a sort of creative stagnancy or, at least, confusion as to where to go next. Similarly, Judy, who I heard speak over Twitter Spaces, described the photo she chose for the exhibition to be a moment where, through her art, nature balanced her during a time where she had felt out of kilter. Brittney also mentioned, during our conversation, the many ways her NFT sales have changed her life and have allowed her to navigate this world on her own terms. May discussed, in her Space, that she needs balance and symmetry in her everyday life and finds that evenness through her work. Mk and Crystal both discussed the concept of duality in their Spaces, which itself requires balance. Taesirat stated, in a promotional piece of content for the exhibition, that her challenge with balance, in regards to her art, is not to lose the trueness of her identity while she creates and while people perceive her as an artist. imnotArt, through this exhibition and the auctions for each of the pieces they’ve showcased, has committed themselves to supporting women photographers, including those who are Black and brown.

Where there is a stagnancy, where there is desire, where there is an unspoken challenge, there is also the possibility of relief. Relief can come in the form of an NFT sale, or a person who looks like us, is open to us, and offers us the resources we need. Relief can come in the form of the moment we capture the perfect photo and set it aside for a special occasion, which can happen, for some, to be an all-women photography exhibition in Chicago. Relief can come in the form of a bunch of hugs that hit different. Or, relief can come in the form of the question, “Can I see your art?” If the NFT space has taught me anything, it’s that it literally pays to care about other people.