African Artifacts Restored in NFTs

A Nigerian man has established a project to restore African artifacts taken by European colonizers by producing 3-D renderings of them. The project is dubbed ‘Looty’ and the creator is selling them as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), using the revenues to assist young African artists.

These objects which were taken during the colonial period have since been restored to their countries of origin in recent years as Western organizations have sent things back to nations such as Nigeria and Benin.

Chidi Nwaubani, the founder of Looty, defines his idea as an alternative type of repatriation in which digital technologies are utilized to restore some control and ownership over artifacts kept distant from Africa.

“Imagine a world where these items were never looted,” Nwaubani said “We’re just trying to reimagine that world and bring that world into the digital form.”

As described by Nwaubani, the process begins with what he calls ‘a digital art heist’, a perfectly legal procedure in which a Looty team member goes to a museum and scans a target object using technology that can be used to create a 3-D image.

An NFT of the image is created and put up for sale via the Looty website, which also acts as an online gallery where anyone can view the images for free. Nwaubani said 20% of the proceeds of NFT sales would go towards grants for African artists aged 25 or under.

Although there were no quick purchases, Nwaubani has received expressions of interest from all around the world since the website’s launch on May 13.

Looty’s earliest NFTs were inspired by a photograph of one of the Benin Bronzes, which were plundered by British forces in what is now Nigeria in 1897 and are now housed in the British Museum in London.

“Knowing that it’s Nigerian but it lives outside of Nigeria has always troubled me. So I felt that there’s something that we could do to change that,” said Nwaubani.