Art photographers team up to launch NFTs to fight climate change

European NFT photography platform Rhapsody curated today announced a partnership with three leading fine art photographers whose work will be featured as NFTs for the first time ever to raise awareness and funding for the fight against climate change.

The collections – from Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Nicolas Henry and Namsa Leuba – mark each artist’s first foray into the blockchain.

Arthus-Bertrand is a French photographer, filmmaker and environmentalist who is best known for his acclaimed aerial photography collection “Earth From Above”. Henry’s art combines photography, sculpture and performance art to create immersive environments that explore themes such as memory, nostalgia and the passage of time. Leuba is a Swiss-Guinean photographer whose art explores the impact of the Western gaze on African identity; her work has been commissioned by, among others, Dior, Christian Lacroix and Nike.

The three artists were brought together by Rhapsody’s Head of Curation, Pierre-Elie de Pibrac, to create photo collections on the Ethereum blockchain that reflect the current state of the environment. The images, which go on sale on May 4, range in price from 2 ETH ($3,685) to 8 ETH ($14,745), with between three and six images available from each artist.

Over 50% of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to Photoclimat, a French charity that raises awareness of climate change through photography, mainly via a massive bi-annual exhibition in Paris that has previously attracted millions of visitors.

De Pibrac’s intention, by convincing the artists involved to stamp their works as NFTs, was to advance the reach of Photoclimat’s mission to previously unreachable audiences with the support of the blockchain.

“It’s difficult to broadcast [our environmental] message,” they told Pibrac Decrypt. “You have to go to Paris, you have to see the art, to start communicating the ideas [represented]. But with NFTs, we can broadcast this message to many more people, and use this technology to allow people to buy artwork they couldn’t [otherwise] purchase.”

“If you’re in New York or Africa, you can’t buy anything from France, the impact is too great,” he continued. “But with NFTs, the impact is very low.”

Photo: Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Rhapsody specifically chose to mint the collections on the Ethereum blockchain, the company said, because of the network’s eco-friendly reputation. Last September, Ethereum transitioned from an energy-sucking proof-of-work model to proof of efforta system for processing chain transactions that has reduced the network’s carbon footprint by 99.99%according to the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI).

The works of Arthus-Bertrand, Leuba and Henry selected to be sold at Rhapsody are thematically and visually diverse, but all are united by a common message about the importance of tackling climate change.

“We all have different styles and approaches when it comes to art, but send the same messages of urgency,” Leuba said Decrypt.

While a number of crypto blockchains have recently moved to less energy-intensive models, crypto remains a problem for the climate conscious. Earlier this month, the Texas Senate adopted a bill limiting the ability of Bitcoin miners to tap power from the precarious Texas power grid during demand peaks. Meanwhile, one North Carolina county is currently considering one one year ban on cryptocurrency mining to assess the practice’s negative environmental impact.

Finally, last week, Solana began, in an alleged first-of-its-kind stroke measurement of real-time data about the carbon emissions and disclose it via a public dashboard.