- TCAF finds itself within dark clouds as it invites NFT artist Pink Cat, without researching her online history.
- This festival is particularly held solely to celebrate comics, and inviting an NFT artist was something strange and caught the eyes of the artists’ community.
- There are acquisitions of plagiarism, cultural appropriation, transphobic remarks, etc following TCAF making Moeel a featured guest.
Several festivals are held globally to celebrate artists and their arts, whether it’s music, dance, art, etc. One such prominent festival is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, an event for artists in Canada.
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is one of the largest global festivals specifically dedicated to the promotion and appreciation of only comics.
But recently, the festival witnessed a wave of problems, as TCAF is at a controversial spot after announcing that NFT artist Pink Cat, commonly known as Saba Moeel, would be among the festival’s featured guests.
And following this, very recently TCAF announced that they are uninviting Moeel, and specified the initial intentions behind her invitation.
In Fact, the featured guest status of Pink Cat attracted the sights of the artist community. Because this festival is particularly held just to celebrate comics, and inviting an NFT artist is strange here.
A lot of artist community members thought of NFTs as an assault on their profession. And the technical and ethical problems with such tokens even became clear when the space witnessed frauds and thefts.
The controversy revolving Moeel heated up when social media users took a look at her online history and discovered a history of tracing artwork, appropriating black culture for profit, tweets disparaging community artists, and other things like transphobic comments.
The controversy about her invitation by TCF didn’t fade even on Memorial Day. And the festival’s official account tweeted on Monday citing that the TCAF executive and organizers have heard the valid concerns and they are working on a statement. And on the following day, they released a statement.
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It highlighted that TCAF originally extended a programming invitation to Moeel based on their daily digital comics work on Instagram, and the personal importance that work had to one of their team members. During this invitation, the organization was not aware of Moeel’s online conduct, plagiarism, or tracing. And that they apologize for programming and promoting this artist.
Furthermore, they specified that they made a mistake.
And clarified that no one from their board has financial ties to the artist, for instance, a holding of the artist’s NFTs.
Seemingly the TCAF participants and fans would not like to merge their art with NFTs at all. It is to look forward to if ever the festival gives the new technology-based NFTs a chance to be a part of this prestigious festival.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast and believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/06/01/toronto-comics-festival-invited-then-uninvited-nft-artist-following-heated-condemnation/