Artist Empowerment. Collector Stewardship. Community Building.
Artist Empowerment. Collector Stewardship. Community Building.
Obscura is a growing and vibrant community of artists, collectors, curators, and builders, brought together with a mission to produce NFT native photography. We envision the blockchain as the first place for photographic images to commence their cultural circulation. Through thoughtful curation, we enable collectors to support and assemble new work from a diverse group of artists around the world.
Our organization empowers emerging and established photographers by bringing their projects to life. We are an organization run by artists for artists. While commissioning world renowned photographers in projects with full creative autonomy, we redistribute a sizable portion of funds through grants, exhibitions, and more opportunities with input from our burgeoning community.
In the first six months since its creation in October 2021, Obscura managed to fund more than 1.2 million dollars to a total of 352 artists, and writers in thirteen unique projects:
- • Uncanny Valley
- • Obscura Curated Commission, 8 Artists
- • Obscura Magnum Commission, 8 Artists
- • Obscura Foundry Commission, 5 Artists
- • Obscura Community Commission, 10 Artists
- • Who We Are 200 Grant, 100 Artists
- • Who We Are Perpetual Collection, 41 Artists
- • Who We Are - Vellum LA Exhibition
- • Obscura - The Billboard Creative Project (Los Angeles), 30 artists
- • The World Today Commission, 138 Artists
- • Carousel Curated
- • Emergency Reporting Commission: Ukraine Dispatch
- • Obscura Journal
Founders
Cooper Ray is a photographer and avid cyclist from New York City. He is firm believer of web3 and our decentralized future. As an early adopter of artist smart contracts via manifold.xyz for his work, Cooper is an evangelist of creator sovereignty and artist education. Founding artist of the theRAWdao.
After obtaining a master’s degree in political science, Wim Van Cappellen started his career as a documentary photographer. He won numerous international photo awards and at age 35, he started a photo production agency in Brussels, Belgium. He is an experienced curator and portfolio reviewer.