PWW3 and Artwrld bring a star studded event IRL to NeueHouse New York

<blockquote>
 "PWW3 was a better attended event than NFT.NYC, both in quality and quantity of people&rdquo; David Cash, Founder &amp; CEO of Cashlabs 
</blockquote>

In the midst of the international NFT.NYC conference this year, our team brought our column Portraits of Women in Web3 to life with a star studded symposium IRL at <a href="https://www.neuehouse.com/houses/madison-square/">Neuehouse</a> Madison Square. Known as PWW3, the event was packed with female leaders and OGs on the blockchain including Swopes, Alida Sun, Olive Allen, Anne Spalter, Micol Ap, David Cash and Jennifer McCoy. Following the symposium, guests were invited to network at Fotografiska&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.fotografiska.com/nyc/dining/chapel-bar/">Chapel Bar</a> - a former 19th century chapel redesigned into a dazzling club experience. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/destabydesta/?hl=en">Desta</a>, director of cultural engagement, voiced his enthusiasm for hosting the afterparty: &ldquo;Since the opening of Chapel Bar, I&rsquo;ve made it my mission to give space for impactful communities, so we were very happy to welcome PWW3.&rdquo;
The <a href="https://twitter.com/PWW3xyz">PWW3</a> symposium received tremendous interest from the Web3 community with an audience of over 1000 attendees - even in the midst of a packed week of events, there was a line out the door and around the block! NFT experts and personalities attending included iconic collector and tech entrepreneur gmoney; author and Yale professor Magnus Resch; Nike &amp; Est&eacute;e Lauder former head of digital marketing Swan Sit; NFT superstars Skye Nicolas and Justin Aversano; digital fashion entrepreneur Daria Shapovalova; and Auronda Scalera, a curator for Art Dubai.
The first edition of PWW3 brought together top entrepreneurs, influencers, web3 experts, artists, curators, and collectors for a TED-style talk. We worked closely with <a href="https://www.artwrld.com/projects/vs" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Artwrld</a>, a marketplace for fine art, digital and contemporary art co-founded by Josh Goldblum, and <a href="https://theivywallet.com/" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">IVY</a>/<a href="https://katla.com/" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">KATLA</a>, a tech startup and an eco-friendly brand from Iceland.
The symposium was structured by discussion groups, fireside chats and keynote speakers. Calling attention to diverse female voices and experiences, the event explored the representation and contributions of women in the field of Web3 and NFTs. &ldquo;Female creators have been historically and unfairly marginalized by establishments whether in art or tech. Web3 offers a powerful leveling of the playing field with new opportunities to connect&rdquo;, Goldblum noted during the event.
Gender gap and diversity issues are not new&nbsp; to the fine art industry, but in tech, the situation is even more dire. Only 7% of Web3 founders are women. Additionally, male-founded crypto startups raise almost 4x more capital than those founded by women -&nbsp; a more significant disparity than other startups. Recently, <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/06/15/dmitri-cherniaks-the-goose-nft-sells-at-sothebys-auction-for-54m/" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Sotheby&rsquo;s</a> broke another sales record with a $6.2M sale for a work by generative artist Dmitri Cherniak that was part of the <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/series/grails-property-from-an-iconic-digital-art-collection" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">GRAILS</a> collection, a sizable digital art collection seized after the bankruptcy of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Paddles in the room were mostly raised by&nbsp; male bidders in their 20s and 30s. In the words of <a href="https://www.expanded.art/" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">ExpandedArt</a> curator <a href="https://www.instagram.com/anika/?hl=en" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Anika Meier</a>, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not great that the Grails collection is mainly associated with male artists. It&rsquo;s not great that most collectors are male and mainly collect male artists.&rdquo; Since&nbsp; NFT collections are often representative of the time and the place from which they were formed, this shows that women still need to create opportunities to reach better market value on the blockchain.&nbsp;
Research shows that only <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-05/only-15-of-bitcoin-traders-are-women-broker-study-shows?leadSource=uverify%20wall" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">15% of bitcoin traders </a>are women. To this date, top charts state uneven market share. Some publications rank only male creators as their <a href="https://influencermarketinghub.com/top-nft-creators/" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">14 top-selling</a>, while others may rank 2 women out of their <a href="https://gothammag.com/top-selling-nft-artists" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">20 top-selling</a> NFT artists. &ldquo;Empowering women in crypto and tech isn't just about closing the gender gap; it's about unlocking a world of untapped potential and embracing the brilliance that has been overlooked for far too long. That's why I was excited to work with Coco and Raina, -&nbsp;says tech entrepreneur and PWW3 co-organizer <a href="https://twitter.com/rodolphek">Rodolphe K&ouml;dderitzsch,</a>&nbsp;- to bring real-life stories of successful women in Web3 to the forefront.&rdquo;
Hence in its first IRL edition, PWW3 succeeded in shedding light on positive achievements and perspectives of women in this rapidly evolving industry, while also allowing space and time for dynamic networking. PWW3 co-curator and Pace Gallery director <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/raina-marie-68123928/" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Raina Marie</a> emphasized: &ldquo;These speakers are not only experts in their field but are articulate, artistic, inteligent, and resilient. Each one has inspired, influenced, encouraged and empowered us - both my co-curator <a href="https://twitter.com/cocodolle">Coco Dolle</a> and I. They've also challenged me. Their unapologetic self expression has shaped my vision of the future. They have fresh perpespectives to bring into this space that will transform Web3 art history at large."
<a href="https://www.lofficielstbarth.com/art/portrait-of-women-in-web3-krista-kim-ambassador-of-healing-with-her-project-0-met">Krista Kim</a>, metaverse ambassador and creator of Mars House, a digital home that sold for over half a million dollars on the blockchain in 2021, kicked off the event with pre-recorded opening remarks. The first 2 discussions were moderated by non-binary Web3 evangelist <a href="https://www.cashlabs.io/">David Cash</a>. Starting with a conversation on AI and coding, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/alidasun/">Alida Sun</a>, <a href="https://annespalter.com/">Anne Spalter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/olive_allen/?hl=en">Olive Allen</a> brought 3 levels of OG artists in the space. Alida's work stems from generative art, while Anne&rsquo;s work taps into traditional and early digital art, and Olive&rsquo;s work draws inspiration&nbsp; from virtual and gaming culture. Thus, the conversation&nbsp; was not just focused around their identity as female artists, but about tech experts with different approaches, aesthetics, and backgrounds.&nbsp;
This high-powered discussion was followed by a second focused group on NFT art curatorial founders and experts: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/swopes/?hl=en">Swopes</a>, artist and founder of Sunrise Art Club; <a href="https://www.verticalcrypto.art/">Micol Ap</a>, founder and CEO of VerticalCrypto Art; <a href="https://www.instagram.com/anamariacaballero/?hl=en">Ana Maria Caballero</a>, poet and co-founder theVerseVerse; and Straith Schreder, <a href="https://palmnftstudio.com/">Palm NFT studio</a> executive creative director. Every speaker in this group has&nbsp; built a community which demonstrates&nbsp; impact in the space, and each offers a specific niche and access to Web3. Swopes empowers&nbsp; underprivileged local BIPOC youth as her core goal, while Ana built a platform for poetry; a very underrepresented medium at institutional level. Micol has been empowering creators all over the world by organizing accessible, multidisciplinary events from London to Berlin to New York. Straith Schreder gave unique insight on the effect of a large corporate &ldquo;drop&rdquo;, such as&nbsp; <a href="https://fadmagazine.com/2021/09/13/damien-hirst-the-currency-the-total-market-value-of-the-project-is-approximately-500million/">Damien Hirst</a>&rsquo;s notable release of 10,000 hand-painted works as NFTs called the &ldquo;The Currency.&rdquo;
Subsequently, Artwrld&rsquo;s managing director Kerin Sulock engaged in a fireside chat with 2 seminal digital and media artists who had been featured in the organization&rsquo;s recent successful drops. Blockchain pioneer and Guggenheim fellow <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/jennifer-kevin-mccoy-nft-artwrld-ai-2284552">Jennifer McCoy</a> spoke with Calder Prize grantee and performance-based artist <a href="http://www.jillmagid.com/projects">Jill Magid</a>. Jill is an artist who recently turned her series of Hand-hacked Bouquets made of digital flowers she collected from early iconic video games into NFTs, and Jennfier and her husband Kevin actually minted the <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/652671/kevin-mccoy-quantum-first-nft-created-sells-at-sothebys-for-over-one-million/">first ever NFT</a> in 2014. Jennifer&rsquo;s work features in the permanent collection of MoMA, and when Jill&rsquo;s was recently acquired by <a href="https://www.artnexus.com/en/news/605398667e8b9e1f1aa201df/the-centre-pompidou-acquired-jill-magid-s-artwork-the-barragan-archives-2013-2016">Centre Pompidou</a>. Together they discussed the similarities of how established "traditional" art institutions are collecting NFT-backed artwork, and how new media and digital art were approached just 20 years ago. Both expect to be creating future work in the form of NFTs, and felt hopeful about the future of digital art in museums.&nbsp;
Two lightning talks were given by writer and curator Anika Meier, and Belle NFTs, collector and founder of <a href="https://www.xyznews.io/">XYZ News</a>.
The symposium culminated with the NFT drop of <a href="https://katla.com/pages/nft">Wonderful Beings</a>, a series of 200 collectible PFPs &lsquo;climate warriors&rsquo; created by Icelandic artist Hendrikka Waage and powered by tech platform <a href="https://theivywallet.com/who-we-are">IVY.CASH,</a>&nbsp;co-founded by CEO Sacha Tueni.&nbsp;This NFT initiative was launched by Moda Operandi founder and former CEO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aslaug-magnusdottir-78549521/">Aslaug Magnusdotti</a>, a notable entrepreneur in sustainable fashion. With her brand <a href="https://katla.com/">KATLA</a>, Aslaug aims to raise funds for ocean regeneration with 15% of sales poured back to seaweed cultivation efforts in Iceland. She gave the audience a demonstration of how merging fashion, art and NFT technology can be a seamless process infused with positive activism. Aslaug and her team brought samples of her eco-friendly KATLA hoodies adorned with artworks from the series. Each garment features a unique QR code: once scanned, the user&nbsp; receives a matching NFT. Every member of the audience was able to scan a QR code from the presentation screen and go home with an NFT, as well as a comforting feeling of giving back to the planet no matter how far.
Consolidating the day in a community building spirit, we concluded the symposium inviting each speaker and partners to sit for a portrait photograph as a proof of presence. Martine Bury, VP of programming and experiential at Neuehouse explains: &ldquo;One of the most special aspects of curating culture for NeueHouse is the alchemy and energy of what happens when creatives convene. While the portraits are a nod to Warhol, we were mainly inspired by the spirit of photographer Art Kane&rsquo;s iconic 1958 capture of jazz icons, A Great Day in Harlem seizing the historical moment, the future and the community of changemakers in Web 3. Only we deconstructed the notion and shot individual portraits to represent the power and purpose of a decentralized community of ideas.&rdquo;
Overall, PWW3&rsquo;s premiere symposium event was valuable in fostering knowledge-sharing, networking, and inspiring further development and growth within the Web3 and NFT communities. Additional partners for this first edition included <a href="https://www.digitalpractice.art/">Digital Practice</a>, <a href="https://www.ecosapiens.xyz/">Ecosapiens</a> and <a href="https://onbd.substack.com/">ONBD</a>.&nbsp;

PWW3 full event images <a href="https://bfa.com/events/39079">here</a>

Portraits of Women in Web3: A Great Day in High-tech

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