QMODA: FUNDRAISER FOR INCLUSIVENESS

Portal para outra Dimensão by @vvdIxz

APRIL 1ST, 2022

QMoDA (Queer Museum of Digital ) is having a fundraiser on Friday, April 8th – to support LGBTQ artists in the space - with staggering drops across time zones and on various tezos platforms.

“We want to raise money, raise tezos, and create funds that can then support underrepresented artists in the space,” says organizer Sky Goodman. “The museum has a similar focus - uplifting and supporting LGBTQ artists.”

The fundraiser is part of a collective of tezos artists/collectors who go by the moniker: ‘the orbies.’ Sky said the orbies were born out of a reaction/rebellion to the de’ Medici’s on Twitter. (Stupid de’ Medici’s).

The mission of ‘the orbies’ (lover of both orbs and, well, all shapes) is to “help spread wealth and support initiatives within the tezos eco-system to uplift artists in the space.”

QMoDA’s first fundraiser was for P1xelfool’s BRG.exe, a tezos fund to support Brazilian artists on tezos. The collective was able to raise around 6000 tezos for his fund.

The success of that fundraiser parlayed Sky into reaching out to QMoDA to see if they would be interested in a fundraiser for a tezos fund to support LGBTQ artists in the space.

The Portal Takes A Human Form by @5_minutestories

The Backstory

The QMODA is a decentralized digital art collection dedicated to exhibiting, preserving, and empowering queer artists from around the globe. Alongside visual art, the QMODA will collect and exhibit a variety of cultural contributions by queer people, including music, writing, software, memes, and movement. The museum will exist as a dynamic and interactive website and will grow to include a metaverse presence. Artwork and cultural contributions will be collected as NFTs across various blockchains. This is queer history, on-chain and immutable.

“The museum was originally put together by Zak Krevitt, a photographer, crypto artist and educator,” says Sky. “(We) just want to be able to curate and support LGBTQ crypto artists and artists in general in the space.”

After launching on Twitter, “It started to have followers and then started collecting on Ethereum in Tezos,” says Sky. “It just started to grow where more people became interested.”

The Initiative

Queer people have made valuable contributions to digital art and culture. Queer people throughout history have brought about some of the most significant cultural milestones across art, music, cryptography, and technology. The QMODA’s mission is to seek these contemporary and historical contributions and ensure they receive the support and recognition they deserve.

Traditionally, if you look at the old-school model of the mainstream art world, it leans towards being non-inclusive. So, have the goalposts changed in the Web3 world?

“It definitely could be more inclusive,” says Sky. “While there’s a lot of potential in the space to make change, we see a lot of the similar kind of systemic inequalities mirroring themselves within the space.”

Sky adds, “It’s still tough to break out; if you’re a woman in crypto it would be a little easier if you’re a CIS white man.

“If you see hype around an artist, you’ll often see trans people or women making the same thing - or people of color making something in a similar vein.”

The backing still leans towards white men in the NFT world.

“You still find some of those issues kind of patterning themselves in Web3, which is why groups like the orbis and (QMoDA) have emerged,” says Sky. “Because we feel there is a need to protect and support people that don’t naturally fall into the majority groups.”

But still, at the same time, Sky is finding that Web3 is offering and giving some great opportunities to people that they wouldn’t find in the traditional art market.

“The fact that a group of friends and I came together and raised 6,000 tez for pixel funds pools a couple of months ago,” Sky says. “I don’t think I would’ve known how to navigate raising $30,000 in a few days without Web3.

“Something is happening here that we wouldn’t have access to otherwise.”

Each artist participating in the fundraiser donated one piece to QMoDA, allowing the museum to keep in its vaulted collection of tezos art on the blockchain.

“We’re planning to have a cyber exhibition with all of those portals. So there will be a future exhibition,” says Sky.

“It’s specifically to raise a tezos fund for people working with the museum to use for collecting art from LGBTQ artists on tezos.”

And for other artists who want to reach out to QMoDA: “It’s not this gated, walled-off garden,” says Sky. “If there are other people that are like, ‘Oh, I want to have a voice.’ - they can always reach out to us.”

“We’re raising money for this fund - but who gets to decide where that money goes is dictated by the community.”

To take part and donate reach out to Sky or QMoDA via Twitter or Discord.

The Artists