Kharkiv Museum Preserving Art through NFTs

Photo by: Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

Ukraine museum Kharkiv has partnered with NFTs to preserve its art. With technology expanding, NFTs are taking things to the next level, taking global arts into the realm and preserving them, so that they exist and can be appreciated forever. Non-fungible tokens are cryptographic tokens that are unique and live on a blockchain.

Binance NFT has announced the launch of tokens preserving art in Ukraine. On October 13 2022, Kharkiv museum announced that its “Art Without Borders” NFT collection is available on the Binance NFT marketplace. The cultural institution has one of Ukraine’s oldest and most valuable art collections. The NFT collection has fifteen art pieces in the collection belonging to the museum. An official announcement stated that the capital raised from the sales of art pieces would be dedicated to financing the museum and saving Ukraine’s cultural heritage.

The museum has a collection of up to 25,000 art pieces from artists from Ukraine and all around the world. The Kharkiv art museum is one of the oldest museums in Ukraine of the 15th-21st centuries. The auction featured collections from George Jacob Johann van Os, Ivan Aivazovsky, Simon de Vlieger and other well-known artists from the region. According to NFT head of Binance, Lisa He, during the war, NFT acted as a potential way for donors seeking a secure medium for providing the funds: “NFTs offer peace of mind to the senders along with the security given all the transactions being registered over the blockchain network. All the donations made through NFTs are under consistent watch, and neither can they be altered or deleted”.

She added that the transparency of the blockchain also allows donors to know when and if funds reached their destination. Most museums have utilised NFTs with blockchain technology, Web3 technology, 3D imaging, and generative art to digitise art. This news of Kharkiv preserving art through NFTs is the best news for Ukraine since the city has been under attack. The disruptive war between Russia and Ukraine poses many threats to the city collection as it can be lost or destroyed in the process. Art preservation through NFT is a good move for the Kharkiv museum.

NFTs liberate art as traditional art is confined to time and space. You have to be in that city or physically go to a museum. Anyone anywhere in the world with an internet connection can view the art and invest in them. NFTs incorporate smart contracts, the critical technology that excludes a set of operations. Smart contracts offer new revenue for an artist; it gives artists a direct link to the customer with no need for third-party involvement in the sale. The Kharkiv museum follows in the footsteps of numerous successful projects that used NFTs to preserve their cultural heritage. The likes of Monuverse museum used NFT to preserve cultural heritage monuments, and the project was launched in the first week of October 2022. The project received a lot of buzz and was a success as it managed to digitise all its pieces. This is not the first innovative application of NFTs, as noted by the experts at Bitsoft360 review, and the world is undoubtedly going to see further use of NFTs in various other aspects of society.

About Kharkiv art museum

The Kharkiv museum is one of Ukraine’s oldest and most valuable art collections. It was founded in 1920 and has been reorganised and renamed several times since then. At first, it consisted of antiquarian collections enriched with precious religious articles that were acquired by registering historical objects belonging to the churches and monasteries. In 1922, the museum was renamed the Kharkiv Museum of Ukrainian Art and consisted of three departments: architecture, sculptures and painting. Since 1965, it has been known as the Kharkiv state museum of fine art, occupying 25 halls.

About Binance NFT marketplace

This is the largest centralised marketplace that features all forms of digital artworks and collectables. Powered by the Binance blockchain infrastructure and community, the Binance NFT marketplace provides a high liquidity platform for users to launch and trade NFTs, bringing together artists, creators, and crypto enthusiasts on a single platform to create and trade NFTs. There are three product lines featured: marketplace, events and mystery boxes. Here is how they function.

• Marketplace: mint, sell, bid, and purchase NFTs from creators around the world
• Events: buy premium and exclusive NFTs created by leading global artists and the most influential names and brands
• Mystery Boxes: each box is guaranteed to have one random NFT inside

About Web3 technology

Web3 is based on creating a decentralised ecosystem. This technological dimension believes in leveraging the power of A.I., machine learning and the latest technology, like blockchain, to solve the present problems. Web3 has been making waves since its launch in the games, business and fashion industries and now the museum world.

Overall, NFTs are opening up a whole host of avenues for the world of art. They can also be used to  view art from all angles as 3D technology is used; this will also give users a chance to browse the art from the museum as they cannot be viewed in the meantime due to the war. We look forward to other historical sites and well-known museums around the world making use of NFTs to preserve their art and heritage.