Case Study 1: The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) recently launched an interesting and exciting way of harnessing creativity, fostering collaboration, and curating art using digital NFT and Blockchain technology. These technologies are effective ways of recording authenticity, ownership, and the Intellectual Property (IP) of a digital asset, in this instance, Art!
This project, named The Postcard Project, is an ongoing global experiment in collaborative
and collective creativity. The idea is based around co-created postcards, made up of 15 individually designed ‘stamps’ which are designed by 15 different artists. It is like a physical postcard, only in digital form, and it travels from one artist to another until all 15 stamps have been filled, creating a digital-art and blockchain journey.
The project is presented by MoMA and uses the ‘Feral File’ app as its digital art platform. It also uses TezozBlockchain technology to keep records of the authenticity and ownership of the created pieces.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: An artist downloads the ‘Feral File’ app and follows the set-up instructions.
Step 2: Designing the stamp. Using MoMA’s colour palette, artists create a pixel-art stamp.
Step 3: Stamp the postcard. This is when an artist’s stamp is recorded into the Blockchain, enabling them to send the postcard to someone else.
Step 4: Send your postcard. Users can invite whoever they’d like to co-create with.
To launch the experiment, MoMA curated a special collection, “The First Fifteen”. This involved the creation of 15 postcards, featuring work from 15 separate artists in different locations. Each artist began with a blank postcard, then created the first stamp before passing the postcard on to the other artists around the world, one artist to the next, until all stamps were filled and all 15 postcards were complete. This process meant that, collectively, the pieces were not only co-designed, but were also co-owned.
The artists making up the ‘First 15’ were those working at the ‘intersection of art and technology’. The artists included: Anna Lucia; Casey Reas; Dmitri Cherniak; Grant Yun; IX Shells; Kim Asendorf; Linda Dounia; LoVid; Operator; Osinachi; p1xelfool; Peter Burr; Sarah Friend; Sasha Stiles; and ykxotkx.
Reaching 35 Cities, 11 countries and 5 five continents, The Museum of Modern Art says that: “The “MoMA First 15” is an act of borderless collaborative creativity, whose parts are as unique as they are equal to the whole’, MoMA hopes that the wider experiment will “inspire connections in the world of digital art”.
Case Study 2: Hear Me Out
Every year, 28,000 people are locked in UK immigration detention centres whilst authorities deliberate on their future. ‘Hear Me Out’ is a small UK-based charity providing music services and workshops for people held in detention.
“We help people inside immigration detention centres to express their humanity through music – to air their losses and fears, their hopes, and their dreams. And we also help everyone outside to hear the music and understand the lives of people trapped inside. We are working for the day that all immigrants are treated with dignity”. – Hear Me Out
In July 2023, ‘Hear Me Out’ launched a fundraising campaign, ‘More Than a Label’.
Co-created by the organisation and a group of people with lived experience of being held in immigration detention centres and asylum hotels, the campaign’s original aim was to raise £3,000 in donations, with the subsequent hope of increasing the number of regular givers to the charity as a result of the campaign.
After receiving training in fundraising and content creation, the fundraising team worked together to design and deliver the campaign.
“At Hear Me Out, we have been working hard to embed co-creation across our whole organisation. But this is the first time we took it into our fundraising. We knew this way of working could remove the previous roles and ‘labels’ of staff and participants, or fundraisers and beneficiaries. Instead, our whole group took on shared roles of creatives and fundraisers.” – Hear Me Out
The team participated in photography workshops, training sessions, and spent time with a film and animation agency, ‘The Saltways’. This time was used to co-create videos for the campaign, along with the development of key messaging.
This was an in-depth process, and it took approximately thirty to forty minutes of video footage to create one of the two and a half minute videos.
Although the campaign was launched by the co-creation team in just six months, it is important to remember that ‘Hear Me Out’ is a small charity with a budget to match. To keep costs low, the charity created an online landing page which it hoped would bring in new income and regular donors. It also used Facebook ads as a way of driving traffic to the landing page.
At the time of writing*, the campaign is underway, and the Facebook ads have already returned their original investment. The charity has added nine new donors, translating to an additional income of £840 per year, plus Gift Aid. In addition, the charity has received 31 cash donations connected to the campaign, with an average gift of £18.
The campaign has also grown the charity’s outreach. The films have been viewed over 167,000 times on Facebook and over 20,000 times on Instagram. This, coupled with the tripling of its monthly website visitors**, has led to a considerable raising of income and awareness for this small organisation.
*Original publishing.
**July-Aug, compared to the previous two months.
Case Study 3: Saving The Brontë Birthplace
The ‘Bronte Birthplace’ is a Grade II listed terraced house in Thornton, Bradford. The house was the birthplace and residence of the three iconic Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne – who are well known for their literary work during the 1800s, most notably through Charlotte Brontë’s work Jane Eyre.
Although a Grade II building of historical significance, the building has an active purchase history, with ownership frequently changing hands. However, in recent years, poor upkeep has left the building empty for extended periods of time, resulting in leaking roofs and rotting windows.
In a movement to save The Brontë Birthplace – a Blue Plaque Property – from further dilapidation, a Community Benefit Society (Brontë Birthplace Limited) was set up with the specific aim of raising funds to purchase the building for community use.
Owning the building would enable the Society to offer paid holiday accommodation for tourists and offer community activities to locals, including writing workshops, activities for schools, and other activities with a Bronte and local heritage focus. The Community Benefit Society is not a charity, but it is not for profit and operates as a community business owned and run by the community, for the benefit of community. In support of its ambitions, the Society’s management committee is made up of Bronte experts, community representatives, and businesspeople who have community backing.
To raise the agreed £300,000 to purchase the building, an initial online Crowdfunder was set-up via crowdfunder.co.uk. The Crowdfunder was based on a shared ownership model and, rather than general donations, individuals were asked to make an investment, with each £1 invested equating to 1 ownership share in Brontë Birthplace Limited. The Crowdfunder was used to ‘top-up’ the £250,000 grant received from Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
“The Society will become a community-owned social enterprise and by subscribing for shares issued by the society in this share offer you will become a member of it and thus co-owner of the Brontë Birthplace. Unlike a standard limited company, a Community Benefit Society is not designed to generate private profit, but to deliver a community benefit. This model guarantees that the assets the Society will own will be used for the benefit of the community and cannot be disposed of for the private profit of the Management Committee or Society Members.” – Bronte Birthplace Limited
After making a successful offer on the property, Brontë Birthplace focused its efforts on raising a further £355,000 for restoration work, aiming to complete the work before Bradford celebrates its UK City of Culture status in 2025. In order to achieve this, a new round of Crowdfunding was announced and is ongoing, whilst the last round of Crowdfunding raised £117,398, via 625 investors across 69 days.
“The former parsonage at Thornton, where the famous Brontë siblings were born, played a significant part in the family’s story. The house is currently inaccessible to admirers of the Brontës and the general public alike. It feels important that it should be preserved and play a part in celebrating the legacy of the extraordinary Brontë family. The Brontë Society, which runs the Brontë Parsonage Museum, fully support this project to save the Brontë Birthplace for the community.” – Ann Dinsdale, Principal Curator, Brontë Parsonage Museum