Tokyo’s iconic Shibuya Crossing, the world’s largest pedestrian crossing, could become the next big canvas for digital artists, thanks to a collaboration between HUG, a social marketplace that enables artists to sell digital and physical goods while to connect with collectors, and Web3’s avant-garde NFT collector Cozomo de’ Medici.
HUG announced on September 6 that it is partnering with the Cozomo de’ Medici Collection and shared the Open Call for artists to submit their work for exhibition alongside six artworks from The Medici Collection – Claire Silver, XCOPY, Sam Spratt, Dawnia Darkstone, Beeple, and Grant Yun.
During the submission process, along with the help of community voting, which will be open to the public for the first time from September 25-27, 50 artworks will be shortlisted. Cozomo de’Medici will create the final part of six pieces that will be displayed on eight digital billboards from October 9 to 15 at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, Japan.
An estimated 2.5 million people pass through the world’s largest pedestrian crossing every day.
The 6 selected pieces of Cozomo de’ Medici are exhibited together with the following pieces from the Medici Collection:
Founded in 2022 by Randi Zuckerberg, HUG is home to 4,000 digital artists across 85 countries and is fueled by its community-driven curation process, highlighting diverse creators, including those from underrepresented communities.
In April, HUG closed its $5 million seed funding led by Web3 investment fund DIGITAL (Mark Daniel and Benjamin Milstein, aka OhhShiny), OKX Ventures and L’Oréal’s IN BOLD enterprise fund. DIGITAL’s investment portfolio also includes Yuga Labs, Dapper Labs, Recur, MoonPay and more.
Interested artists are invited from 6 to 24 September to submit their work.
HUG has shared its future plans to roll out more Open Calls, aiming to create the first community-owned store that supports the sale of physical prints and digital collectibles.
Editor’s note: This article was written by a staff member of nft now in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-3.