In the past three years, artist Olive Allen has expanded in and beyond the physical art world, leading the way for artist entrepreneurs to think new ways about engaging the digital universe. 

A pioneer of blockchain use since 2018, Ms. Allen was a part of the first-ever NFT drops on sites like Nifty Gateway and Super Rare. From the start, she has been an advocate for women in web3 at the forefront of NFT technology, and a regular guest speaker on multiple panels from Silicon Valley to major contemporary art fairs.&nbsp;

Born in Russia, she came to the U.S. fashioning a savvy creative path, landed in California trying her own start up while painting in her studio, and then moved to New York. Fascinated with technology and society, she quickly focused her attention from painting to digital art. In 2021, she became the first artist to sell an NFT at an art fair in <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/nfts-art-basel-2011438">Art Basel</a>. More recently, during the last NFT.NYC 2022 conference, she was nominated by <a href="https://nftnow.com/nft100-list-2022/">nft.now</a> as one of the 100 most influential creators in the NFT space.

In May 2022, for her first solo exhibition &ldquo;Welcome to the Metaverse&rdquo; at New York gallery <a href="https://www.postmastersart.com/">Postmasters Gallery</a>, Ms. Allen applied and designed her digital universe onto a physical 4,500 square foot exhibition surface.&nbsp;

Largely informed by gaming culture, this ambitious exhibition aimed to immerse the visitor into a physical metaverse, a sort of blue galactical kiosk set up like a gift shop, meant to question the promises of cyber-utopia that new technologies are creating in our society.&nbsp;

The first room displayed Ms. Allen&rsquo;s set of toy heroes. In the vein of her early NFT series <a href="https://oliveallen.com/theunbearables">&ldquo;The Unbearables&rdquo;</a>, created as cute remedies against societal anxieties, her ai-powered and animated refurbished Furbies Hypebeasts, Metacats, Hypebirds, Bull/Bears, and Sheeples were made available in multiple mediums, 3D sculptures, paintings, and inflatables. Each toy was rendered as a high-gloss rotating figure and has its own story. Ms. Allen used these avatars as representatives of youth culture, the generation of the future. For the artist, evolution is important. She said: &ldquo;White walls are boring and if anything could be an NFT, it might as well be art&rdquo;. Across the room, a larger screen sets the tone for a larger futuristic world. It presented a planetary architecture drawing from the unused design of an opera building on the water imagined by Andrew Heid&rsquo;s <a href="http://noarchitecture.com/">No Architecture</a>,&nbsp;

The next room presented her inflatable Genesis bear and further digital landscape compositions where one is to pick a journey to enter multiple quests. She stated: &ldquo;Metaverse is not just the popular catchphrase and VC investment thesis, but truly an escapist dream. A chance for a new life, a chance to restart.&rdquo; As the viewer dived into her world, gigantic eyeballs were popping in the work as they were watching us, a reminder of tracking from the internet.

While Ms. Allen&rsquo;s digital world seemed to invite us to a safer, and positive promising world, however, she is well aware of the contradictions and the dark politics in real life. In deep opposition to Putin&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine, she recently made headlines for burning her Russian passport and turning the video into an NFT to raise funds for humanitarian organizations. Her act of defiance was streamed on U.S. TV and paired with an interview on <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/04/14/in-their-own-words-russian-artist-living-in-nyc-passport-in-protestburns.html">CNBC</a>.&nbsp;

Throughout her practice as an artist, Ms. Allen&rsquo;s sardonic nature has brought her to align her sensibility with larger political causes. She has exhibited her works in feminist resistance group shows at <a href="https://untitled-space.com/one-year-of-resistance-group-show/">The Untitled Space</a>, and more recently she joined the Web3 all-female and queer activist incentive by Pussy Riot&rsquo;s <a href="https://time.com/4671189/pussy-riot-nadya-tolokonnikova-donald-trump-resistance/">Nadya Tolokonnikova</a>. In her public talks, she makes sure to always mention women only occupying merely 5% part of the space on the blockchain.&nbsp;

Postmaster gallery co-founder, Magda Sawon, says: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s crucial to promote a woman artist in the crypto space when there is not a show, especially not a show of that scale. We made a full-fledged commitment to the expression of Ms. Allen&rsquo;s idea.&rdquo; At the forefront of the culture, the gallery&rsquo;s programming engaged with digital art in 1996, at the cusp of email technology, its first digital show was titled Can you digit?. &ldquo;When NFT came surfacing we decided to step forward and promote artists on the blockchain.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Olive Allen, Welcome to the Metaverse, image courtesy of Postmasters Gallery, 2022

After visiting the exhibition, I pursued my conversation with the artist:

L&#39;Officiel / Coco Dolle: The main characters in your work are inspired by toys and bears as a means of escapism from this world. Can you elaborate? How is the Metaverse a place for human salvation?&nbsp; 
Olive Allen: They serve as symbols, as a commentary on society. They help to unfold the narrative and should not be taken at face value.&nbsp;&ldquo;The UnBearables&rdquo; first appeared in my work in 2020 as the symbols of climate change and other issues of the modern world that I found unbearable at the time. Also, it&rsquo;s my way to not get self-absorbed and still find humor in the most mundane and grim circumstances.&nbsp;

L&#39;O: By publicly burning your Russian passport, you have discarded your right to return to your own country. You mentioned your family being brainwashed by Russian propaganda to a point of no return. How do you see the next generation of Russian evolving?&nbsp; 
OA: Most of the people of my generation and younger are aware of what&rsquo;s going on. And a lot of them, just like myself back in the day, choose to leave. In total, 3.9 million people left Russia in the first quarter of 2022, 8.4 million in 2019, and 7.6 million in 2020. Only in 2021, at the height of covid, there were fewer &mdash; 2.7 million. [Source: <a href="https://www.europeantimes.news/2022/05/how-many-people-left-russia-because-of-the-war/">https://www.europeantimes.news/2022/05/how-many-people-left-russia-because-of-the-war/</a>] So, yes, the new generation of Russians, the brightest minds and the hope for a better future has fled the country or are planning to &hellip; It seems like we&#39;ll have to somehow rebuild it outside of Russia&hellip; It&rsquo;s really difficult to make any prognosis and plans for the future right now. We&rsquo;re still in the midst of the horrific war and internal oppression.&nbsp;

CD: You mention the future of the metaverse being flooded by brands. How do you envision creators and artists surviving further corporate invasions on a platform they barely just started flourishing with?&nbsp; 
OA: I believe corporations that own brands (like LVMH), as well as gaming companies, will be the first primarily builders of the metaverse. Simply by the virtue of the resources and clear objectives. And for gaming companies, also technology and access to the top talent that has experience in building virtual environments. I highly doubt that it would be built by the individual creators. I also anticipate that several smaller blockchain startups will be acquired by giants like Meta and etc. despite the prevalent narrative in the space that web3 will &ldquo;never sell out&rdquo; to Meta.&nbsp;

CD: You are an active participant in conversations on the place of women in Web3. What are the main challenges for women in the metaverse and how should we go about it?&nbsp; 
OA: Metaverse is technically built by the same people who are part of this same biased and unequal society we&rsquo;re living in today. The question is how do we break the existing barriers and create a better environment for everyone to have equal opportunities? And this is a whole other story ...

Portraits of Women in Web3: Olive Allen pioneer NFT artist on creating her metaverse.

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