Black History Month UK at KnownOrigin


In October, at KnownOrigin, we attempted to do justice to Black History Month UK through the celebration of past, present and future artists in both the traditional art world and also the digital art world.

One of the challenges of this was to celebrate BHM in a way that was genuine and not just another example of tokenism in a corporate space, which is something that I’m all too aware of as a Black British man. It was for this reason that I enlisted the help of key members of the KO community to help with this significant month.



Let’s start with the future. We noticed an outright lack of Black British artists within the NFT scene and wanted to make some first steps to solving this. This led to the enlistment of the amazing Crystal Petit, also known as BlackNFTCreators, in order to find some amazing underrepresented artists. As a result of this, we managed to onboard William Amo, HKB Finn and Nariscia; three amazingly-talented artists that had not engaged fully in the NFT community as a result of a combination of lack of opportunity and a perceived lack of representation.



Next, we looked at how we can support present Black British artists using KnownOrigin’s platform. To do this, we created a dialogue using Twitter Spaces, inviting 10-12 artists of a range of ethnic backgrounds to ask them about the struggles they’ve experienced in the NFT community and how platforms such as KnownOrigin can remove these barriers to entry. This ended up being an extremely emotional, powerful and rewarding conversation that inspired change amongst both creators and staff alike.



Another aspect of Black British history we wanted to celebrate was the achievements of Black British artists, particularly those in the traditional art space, who paved the way for digital artists of the future. For this, we reached out to the world-famous Willard Wigan MBE, the best microartist in the art world (or world in general). With Dr Wigan, we worked together to create a curation centre, which would feature artists hand-picked by him, showcasing the talents of underrepresented artists, largely from Black British backgrounds and local to the West Midlands. We’re looking to continue working with Willard on future projects, joining him on his mission to inspire artistic creativity amongst young underrepresented groups.



(Credit: Dr Willard Wigan MBE)

The main takeaway from our Black History Month was how supportive the KO community are regarding increasing diversity in the NFT community. We had overwhelming support with every announcement we made and have started some important, ongoing conversations that will be sure to increase representation amongst not only Black British artists, but all artists from underrepresented groups.

Article by Mecquel, Marketing & Creative Project Lead at KnownOrigin