Art of Her

While museums debate returning objects that may have been acquired through theft, war, or colonization, one digital entrepreneur is taking matters into their own hands, Artnet report.

The entrepreneur has come up with the virtual restitution project “Looty”, which produces NFTs of looted objects in major institutions and sells them, with 20 percent of the proceeds going to grants for young African artists.

Looty uses an entirely legal process. Named after a dog taken from China and gifted to Queen Victoria, the project contributes to the charged conversations around restitution in a witty and anarchic way.

“Before the British were looting African artifacts, they had already made a fortune off items stolen from China. Even though we are called Looty, we are doing it in a nonviolent way, and a legal way.” - said Chidi Nwaubani.

The Looty website details the first drop, a collection of 25 NFTs of Benin Bronzes. Each sale will pay 20% royalties into the Looty Fund. The fund is open to artists under the age of 25 from the African continent and will start to pay out when 75 percent of the collection has sold.

If you want to look at Benin bronze you need to wait years for a museum being built in Nigeria, rather need to apply for a visa, then buy a ticket for plane, get to England, and book hotels. Then you go and view the artwork. There are not many people who are able to do that. But we want to show that to the world now. » added Chidi Nwaubani.

The next stage of the project will be the creation of a virtual museum in the metauniverse to accommodate recultivated artifacts, as well as the expansion of augmented reality and goods. The hope is to expand the project around the world by creating a family of digital looters that can be added to the virtual museum. While the Beninese bronze from the first batch has not yet sold out, the next topic has already been decided: the artifact from Egypt.