Januar 2023

Interview by Irina Rusinovich

Tell me about yourselves. What background are you coming from?

Daria Vankova:

I bring brands to the Metaverse. Our agency creates a strategy for transition to the virtual worlds and implements it. I also develop blockchain-related projects. I came into this field from PR, which I did for 12 years. I believe that metaverses are an amazing new communication channel for the future. We will all be there, as we once were registered on social networks.

Nadia Vesna:

I’m a digital strategist for brands and products, soft skills evangelist and people manager. During my professional sabbatical I invested my time for education, one of the fields became web3 in NFT Academy to empower my digital comms knowledge. 

Now I’m also a co-founder of the Pink Metaverse October.

Julia Tet:

I am an independent curator and producer of creative industries projects, artist for the soul, the founder of ARTTET project with the mission to unite creative minds through cultural diplomacy and artistic cooperation. Now investigating web3.0 opportunities and believe that new technologies can now really make a significant contribution to the development of the modern world.

Maria Vatset:

I am a full-stack developer who has recently taken a deep interest in WEB3 technologies from smart contracts to metaverses. Then I started working with Daria to merge marketing and web technologies. Currently, I am actively promoting the Web3 story to the masses and collaborating with large companies. In December 2022, I organized a conference in St. Petersburg focused on blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and metaverses from a scientific perspective

Nadia Vesna

Daria Vankova

Maria Vatset

Julia Tet

How did you come up with the idea of developing the PINK OCTOBER Project?

Daria:

Nadia was looking for Web 3.0 project about breast cancer. It turned out there were no such projects and I suggested we do it ourselves because this topic is very close and important to me. I’ve faced cancer in my family, my friends died of cancer, and I understand the importance of education on the subject. The more you know, the earlier you discover the disease. Knowledge increases the chances of recovery.

Nadia:

There are 3 factors. First: I’m volunteering for the local BY #againstbreastcancer fund named “Touch with hands”. Second: as a digital manager I have my private blog “Beznadezhnoe poznanie”, which makes me famous among colleagues and friends as an expert in web2 and web 3 skills (that’s why Alla contacted me). The third: I studied at NFT Academy. 

The story in short: Alla Aloe, the founder of the TWH fund, asked me to create a post for their Instagram about how Web 3.0. tools increase awareness about breast cancer as if i made it for my blog. I found nothing across all metaverses and NFT collections. Then I asked for help from my classmates from NFT Academy and found Dasha! She said: let’s do it together! Her response was crucial for the project. 

Julia:

This year I decided to devote myself to the exploration of new opportunities of web 3.0. I took a course at NFT Academy and was looking for projects where I could combine my experience in Arts and creative industries, explore how web 3.0 could work, and also how new tools could make a real useful impact for the world. My request to the Universe was heard 🙂 We started to cooperate with Dasha. I saw her post about the open call for the Pink Metaverse Exhibition, appreciated the concept, and decided to join the project.  

What were the stages of forming a team?

Daria: Masha joined the project from the very beginning, and Julia joined a week later; her experience in working with artists is important to us.

What are the main obstacles you are facing? And what are the ways to overcome them?

Daria: Lack of time. This is a charity and we all do it in our spare time, however we have great plans for this year and the project is my priority now. Perhaps another thing is people’s fear of the topic of cancer. Cancer is ugly and not Instagrammable. We try to talk about it in a way that doesn’t make people uncomfortable. But a lot of people are afraid of cancer, avoid thinking about it in every way possible.

Nadia: Huge amount of information and the sensitiveness of the topic. It was very important for me not to make mistakes, proofread all facts we communicated and project stages with experts (medical workers and volunteers).

Julia: The new field requires a full immersion and a detailed study of the specifics, and everything is changing very rapidly there, and you must always keep your hand on the pulse, sometimes move by intuition, constantly learning something new. So for me there is very often an imposter syndrome in the air. But I believe that the road takes the walker. 

Maria: The main difficulties are imperfections of the metaverses, each metaverse has its own limitations. For example, we decided to hold our first exhibition in Roblox, because there are the most active users there, but Roblox has pretty strict censorship and many of the paintings sent to the opencall didn’t pass it. In the future, we plan to hold „Pink October“ lectures already in other metaverses, since Roblox has quite a narrow functionality to realize it.

Why did you decide to go for METAVERSE? Why is it important?

Daria: There are many reasons for this. There’s a lot of hype around the Metaverse, and this is a great opportunity for us. In addition, the metaverses allow us to not be limited by space or time. We’re doing an international project. We gathered artists from different countries. Everyone who has a smartphone and internet can come to the exhibition and learn more about breast cancer. There are online events and an auction coming up. Unlike offline activities, our audience is the whole world.

Nadia: It’s a great new channel with a huge audience (mostly young). So why not? In this case the more we speak – the better.

Julia: Now the Metaverse is a whole new round of human interaction, and we are at a tipping point where the world is changing dramatically. Metaverse is not only a tool or a space where people could communicate but also a new philosophy where the main voice belongs to the community, not to the Government or the Company. And this creates a real value to act for each person. I think each project in Metaverse should have some particular valuable mission. It’s like an opportunity to build independent communes united by some particular ideas – we are moving to the future by inheriting the past. In our case it’s the idea to prevent cancer that is still a big problem in the modern world. Metaverse is also a network for young generations who are the future. 

Maria: The metaverse not only enables us to access virtual spaces from any location of the world , but it also expands our perception through immersion. With just a smartphone, users can experience this for themselves. I believe that the hype surrounding metaverses is warranted, and this technology will continue to evolve and have practical applications in the future.

How do you prioritize and delegate tasks in your project? Who does what?

Daria: Nadia is responsible for marketing, our website, community management and the main concept of the project, Julia for curation of the exhibition and events concepts, partnership development of the project, and Masha for the technical part. I am responsible for the business part. Everyone helps everyone, though. At the moment we have a targetologist and a designer. The project is growing and new tasks arise.

Julia: The structure of our project is very similar to the turquoise economy: everyone herself determines the area of her own responsibility. When issues arise, we discuss solutions as a team, and decide who is responsible for the next step. This is probably the most effective model for implementing projects in web 3.0, but here at the same time there is a serious challenge that you have to be a really high professional in your field for the project to move successfully.

Do you use any tools to plan your project?

Nadia: As a manager-freak, I used kanban and always wrote MFU after each meeting to create new tasks. But I never insisted on the team to join me, it’s my professional peculiarities  – i can’t live without a task-manager 🙂 

How do you handle conflict within your team?

Daria: I don’t think we’ve had a single conflict yet. But I think the main thing is to know who is responsible for what. Everyone has an opinion, but the final decision is made by the one whose area of responsibility is the issue.

Nadia: Trusted and open communication is the best way to negotiate. 

Julia: The best way to handle a conflict is to discuss the reasons. But it’s true, by this point we haven’t had any conflicts. And that means that everything is going right.

How is it to work remotely? What difficulties do you face?

Daria: Perhaps the main difficulty is the time zone difference. As for remotely work, the covid pandemic has taught us that an office is not necessarily a prerequisite for productive teamwork. Major companies are opening their offices in Metaverses. So it’s not a problem for us to work online. 

I think remote is the new standard. We are all accustomed to it now. Even though the time zones are different our team faced no problems. Right colleagues? 

Julia: Yes, indeed, we now have fewer and fewer distance-related constraints thanks to technology. By the way, Metaverse offers brilliant solutions on this subject. People say Metaverse is the Internet of the future, where there is no concept of remote work, because we are all in the space of the Metaverse.

Describe your experience in this industry.

Daria: I decided to create a project with Nadia, rather because Metaverses is my professional field, and I am sure that I can do good by combining my experience with the experience of the team.

Nadia: I’m not much into metaverses. That’s why I fully trust Dasha and Maria. I have the NFT collection of my 35mm film photoshoots but just as an experiment, to understand the tool and the new digital channels. 

Julia: As I have already said, so far I am more of an explorer and observer than an activist in this sphere. However, thanks to the Pink Metaverse project, a great start has already been made. Now I am also working on another project with the mission to unite people in the art industry from all over the world. But that’s another story 🙂 

Maria: I frequently engage in creating, discussing, and spending time in metaverses 🙂  But this is the first time I’m launching a charity project

What are your favorite and least favorite technology products, and why?

Daria: The word of the year is «Neural network». ChatGPT, which creates texts, and MidJorney, which creates visuals, are insanely popular right now. These are incredibly handy tools that optimize content generation processes. Neural networks also have great opportunities in metaverses. Instead of having a real person in their avatar interacting with visitors to a virtual bank or boutique there, it will be possible to program a self-learning bot that will take over the main negotiations. And while today a chatbot is most often a small set of standard questions and answers, in the future its possibilities are limitless.

How do you think technology advances will impact the art industry?

Daria: First of all, digital art is now as valued as classical art. It is also collected, exhibited, sold. Secondly, Artificial Intelligence is coming to the aid of artists and designers. Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think that Ai can replace creators. Rather, it will become a great tool in their hands.

Julia: I think that technology will affect the development of the Art industry only in a positive way and in no way will replace humanity in this sphere. There is a great deal of discourse about this aspect right now. But it’s all about our own choices: technology can be used as an additional tool to create, promote and sell Arts, as well to make the industry more open and diverse. Technology could help to solve some operational processes regarding Arts, thereby giving creators more freedom concerning the creative process itself. The question is how creators and managers could use this opportunity and manage the creative process with the involvement of technology.

Maria: In my opinion, technology will shape the concept of how art will be created, transmitted and perceived in the future. Artificial intelligence will be used more often to create paintings, blockchain to authenticate art, and metaverse to expand the perception of paintings at exhibitions.

What are the marks of a successful project do you think?

Daria: Involvement of people

Nadia: Visible and strict set of goals which are matters for each member of the team. It helps to construct the synergy within the team. While the team is the key success of each project. 

Julia: Successful achievement of the project’s mission and following the plan, positive feedback from the people involved, project sustainability. 

Maria: Effective resource management. In our case, resources mean people and technologies.

Tell us the main dates of your project so our followers will keep them in mind!

Daria: Until January 30, there will be a sale of the New Year NFT collection, the proceeds of which we will donate to a charity project from Minsk. In February, we have open lectures in the Metaverse. In October there will be a big charity auction. You can find the project’s Roadmap on our website.

Subscribe to official project sources:
Instagram: @pinkmetaverseoctober
Facebook: @Pink Metaverse October
Twitter: @pinkoctobermeta
Discord: https://discord.gg/zHh3hbQH 

project site: https://pinkmetaverseoctober.com/
visit Pink Metaverse Exhibition in Roblox:
https://www.roblox.com/games/11826168178/Pink-Metaverse-October 

link to Pink Metaverse Collection:
buy charity NFT till 30th of January!
https://opensea.io/collection/pinkxmas

Thank you for taking the time to interview! We are glad to welcome you to PURPLE HAZE magazine. Before asking questions about gallery, I would like to know more about you as the director and founder of the gallery.

Tell us a little about yourself. At what point did you become interested in photography? What inspired you to create a gallery? 

Robert Morat, Photo by: Roger Eberhard

Please tell us about the concept of the gallery. How does the selection of photo artists take place? How was the visual language of the gallery created? 

Bill Jacobson and Giorgio Morandi „Photographs and Drawings“ at the Berlin gallery space, spring 2018. Photo by: Roger Eberhard

Bill Jacobson and Giorgio Morandi „Photographs and Drawings“ at the Berlin gallery space, spring 2018. Photo by: Roger Eberhard

At what point, in your opinion, was the adoption of photography as an art form? 

Photography has always allowed not only for the realistic description of reality, but also for it’s subjective, creative interpretation. Ever since the surrealist Man Ray put the sound holes of a Cello on to the back of his female model in 1924, photography has been an art form. MoMA started collecting photography in 1930. Photography has always been an art form. Just because there are people that have not caught up, doesn’t change the fact.

What influence has photography had on the development of modern art? 

When the French painter Eugène Delacroix saw the first heliography in the late 1820ies, he famously exclaimed: This is the end of Art! History has proven him wrong. On the contrary, the accurate representation of the world through photography has freed painting from the need to be realistic. Film, developed from photography, has become the most important art form of the modern age.  So the influence of photography not only on Modern Art, but on the way we communicate today, can not be overstated.

Solo Booth for Hannah Hughes at PHOTO LONDON 2022

Robert Morat Galerie was established in 2004. How has the art market changed since that time? What difficulties are gallery owners, artists, photographers experiencing in Berlin at the moment? 

The art market has always been a very volatile market, following economic cycles. When we started out in 2004, the stars of the Becher School, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer broke through internationally. Contemporary photography out of German was in high demand all of a sudden – we were lucky to start out in that environment. The years 2005, 2006, 2007 saw a strong high point of international art dealing. But just 12 months later, November 2008 saw the Lehman Brother’s crash and the international fiscal crises that the implosion of the American housing market caused. The following years, 2009, 2010, were difficult, many galleries closed, the market was down. But eventually it picked up again. Gallery owners and artists always had to deal with that volatility. Or take last year, we had just come out of two pandemic years, the market just started to pick up when Russia started it’s criminal, shameful war in Ukraine. It felt like somebody pulled the plug. All sales stopped on February 24. What followed was another difficult season. But then in fall, things came around, the market picked uo again, the winter season was extremely successful. It feels like a rollercoaster ride mostly.

Works by Jessica Backhaus, Hannah Hughes and Bill Jacobson at our booth at PARIS PHOTO 2022

Lena Amuat & Zoë Meyer are a Swiss artist duo, the latest addition to the gallery program. „Artefakte und Modelle“ is their first exhibition with us, a series of still life studies. The project is a collection of objects that embody the human struggle for knowledge. Over twelve years in the making and numbering hundreds of images, the project inventories the models, artifacts, natural specimen and teaching objects that the two women have unearthed traveling to search through the archives and collections of European universities and natural history museums. Dutch art historian Flor Linckens calls it “a series of enigmatic and decontextualized objects that are given a new life” and in her review of the work she writes: “Elements from science, advertising, religion, art and nature are isolated and combined effortlessly in what could be described as encyclopedic cabinets of curiosities. In the work of Amuat and Meyer, the past and the present enter into a new relationship.”

Lena Amuat & Zoë Meyer, Mathematisches Modell #138, 2017

What are you, Robert Morat Galerie, aiming for in the future? 

To stay on board the rollercoaster a little longer!

The exhibition “Artefakte und Modelle” by Lena Amuat und Zoë Meyer will be held at the Robert Morat Gallerie until February 25, 2023.