APENFT Foundation Launches $100 Million Art Dream Fund

[PRESS RELEASE – Singapore, Singapore, 2nd November 2021]

APENFT, the premier NFT foundation and fund, and TRON have announced the formal establishment of the $100million ‘Art Dream Fund’ to explore, cultivate, and support talented NFT and digital artists. APENFT aims to collect meaningful stories and promote the fusion of finance, culture, and art in the metaverse and will do so by building three main pillars: acquisition of culturally significant NFT artworks, investment and incubation of NFT projects, and the creation of an NFT marketplace.

The first open call of the ‘Art Dream Fund’ invites artists and creators to explore the theme of “Second Life” in the metaverse. “Second Life” is a concept closely related to the metaverse, and NFT is seen as the “ticket to the metaverse.” Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, utopian and dystopian visions of Web3.0 the Internet has been put forth, capturing the emergence of increasing complexities and variability of human life and hybrid experiences. We are now living in the digital golden age, enjoying tremendous technological and scientific progress with the accelerated development of blockchain. NFT and on-chain games are bringing people’s vision of the metaverse closer to reality than ever before.

This is an open invitation for artists to portray their dream lives and futures through digital media. As technology profoundly changes the way we play, learn, organize, socialize, and create, there is an urgent need to explore what a highly intelligent and networked society requires us to be and what a high-tech but humanized world would look like. ‘Art Dream Fund’ hopes to unleash and resource bold and unbridled creativity by inspiring artists to present their Second Life – a story that has yet to unfold.

The open call aims to explore the questions that arise when our lives and social relationships become more closely intertwined with technology as social mediation. Such as; what kind of religious worship, new artistic origins, literary inspirations, and subversive scientific discoveries will be brought by humanity’s vision of the Metaverse? What does this for human consciousness, including all experiences, feelings, and emotions? What is the nature of reality? What will the future look like when artists participate in the construction of the Metaverse through digital art?

In the future, APENFT will launch support regularly through open calls, art grants, and artist in Residence programs. In addition to financing artistic creations, the ‘Art Dream Fund’ will also provide support and professional guidance to selected artists and artworks in various aspects such as marketing, PR, community building, and copyright protection in the NFT space. “Our goal is to introduce a group of incredible creators to the world of NFTs, empower them to explore new methods of creation, and share that opportunity with their communities,” said Sydney Xiong, APENFT Art director and curator.

There are three awards in this open call, including the grand prize award of $20,000, best creativity awards of $10,000, and best category awards of $5000. In addition, artists will receive publicity and exposure on TRON and APENFT social media. They will also have the opportunity to be featured in the APENFT’s marketplace launch event and participate in the APENFT virtual exhibition.

Digital art is an open field full of unknown possibilities, with inclusive and borderless artistic characteristics. This themed call encourages the exploration and interpretation of any art form on the theme “Second Life,” and any digital art media and styles are accepted. How has digital art and crypto art become a new, independent, and self-consistent art form? How do they facilitate creative thinking and challenge uncharted territories? Those are the further questions APENFT hopes creators will answer through their works. The themed open call is open to artists and creators working in all disciplines with no age, region, or occupation restrictions. Entries can be submitted individually or as a group or community. Group work is highly encouraged in the NFT space, where people value community spirit.

Artists must submit their artworks before November 27th. The award announcement will be made on December 10th. Justin Sun, founder of TRON, Sydney Xiong, APENFT Art Director and Curator, and three anonymous NFT art experts will select winning pieces based on five key criteria: aesthetics & creativity, ideas & concepts, technical skills, relevance, and the artist’s statement. “I hope that the establishment of the ‘Art Dream Fund’  can bring about a paradigm shift in the creator economy by giving all-around support to creators who wish to contribute to the NFT art ecosystem with creative thinking,” said Justin Sun, Founder of TRON.