Decentraland’s brand new immersive experience will appeal to fans of Frida Kahlo. The red house in the famous neighborhood of Coyoacan in Mexico City where the Mexican painter grew up is now open for business. Visitors are exploring it in the metaverse.
And with it come many untold stories of the prominent painter’s childhood and adolescence.
The experience launched during the third edition of Metaverse Art Week hosted by Decentraland. Other art experiences this year included Artnet, an online art community exploring the metaverse through performance art, AI, and live poetry.
The Ukrainian Meta History Museum of War also made an appearance. It is the biggest Ukrainian charitable NFT project. It’s currently on a mission to document the truth about events happening in Ukraine on the blockchain.
But it was the Frida Kahlo experience that certainly made a splash this year.
Twitter user @gossapegirl said: Finished an immersive tour of Frida Kahlo’s Red House. If learning history was this fun in school, I would have done better!
“Complete quests, play the piano, and pick up a POAP from Frida herself!”
Finished an immersive tour of Frida Kahlo Family's Red House. If learning history was this fun in school, I would have done better! Complete quests, play the piano, and pick up a POAP from Frida herself! #MetaverseArtWeek #DCL #decentraland pic.twitter.com/uuYlKI1GeK
— GossApe Girl (@gossapegirl) August 24, 2022
The Red House experience was delivered by Ezel.Life and Kahlo’s family
The Frida Kahlo experience was delivered in collaboration with Ezel.Life and Kahlo’s family. It will now remain a permanent exhibition in Decentraland.
Ezel.Life was founded in 2021 and its mission is to bring ‘time, culture, and humanity to Web3’. The Frida Kahlo immersive experience is the very first project the new company has delivered.
Those who register with Ezel.Life before accessing the experience are still in with a chance to receive a free NFT with exclusive material certified by the Kahlo family.
Pedro Quinzanos, co-founder and CEO of Ezel.Life said:
“We are thrilled to partner with Decentraland to bring Frida Kahlo’s family home, The Red House, into the metaverse.
“This experience will uncover many untold stories and memories about Frida Kahlo’s challenges and triumphs that add depth to her exceptional life as an artist.”
Luke McFarlane, the co-founder of Ezel, added:
“The first 20 years will be represented in this house. It sets up a lot of her struggles and adversities, but also her drive and passion for life; between polio, coming of age and a major bus accident.”
Ezel.Life is gearing up to create other metaverse experiences in the future. Among the projects they’re working on are immersive experiences at UNESCO World Heritage sites Teotihuacán and ChichĂ©n Itzá.
Frida Kahlo in Decentraland: What can we expect?
Visitors to Frida Kahlo’s red house in Decentraland will be able to explore nine rooms within Frida Kahlo’s home. Each room comes with lots of brand new information about the artist and is narrated by her family members.
To progress through each room, visitors need to complete a quest. In the first room, for instance, visitors explore toys and objects that Frida Kahlo shared with her sister Cristina during their childhood.
In order to progress to the next room, visitors have to find three keywords – Germany, Cristina, and Freedom. They can locate these keywords by exploring the interactive items.
Once they complete this quest, they can move on to the next room where they’ll be able to interact with more objects and learn more about Kahlo.
Shortly after the red house opened to visitors, YouTuber Bleace uploaded a walkthrough of the Frida Kahlo experience for fans of the artist who are not attending the Metaverse Art Week event.
How did the Frida Kahlo experience come about?
Pedro Quinzanos said in a pre-recorded Twitter Spaces session that he personally collaborated with Mara, the great-great niece of Frida Kahlo, to deliver the experience.
He learned about all the assets and stories the family still held. They had a lot of information that they wanted to share, but were concerned that this information could be twisted by the media.
Listen to https://t.co/7zrD9PTShc's founder discuss preservation of time, culture and art in the metaverse! #metaverse #web3 #decentraland #Archaeology https://t.co/6ga9qMcnc4
— Ezel.Life (@EzelLife_) August 30, 2022
This is where Pedro came in. He said: “I started telling them good things about blockchain and Web3. And basically, they loved it.
At first, all they wanted to do is turn one of the videos the family holds into an NFT. This was a three-minute video considered to be one of the ‘jewels’ the family held about Frida Kahlo.
“They liked the idea of taking her art into the blockchain and preserving her history the way they wanted to tell it. Long story short, after a couple of years, we digitalized around 300 assets and still need to do another 500.
“The idea is to create an immutable record of the history of Frida Kahlo.”
The physical Red House brick that connects the metaverse with the real world
Among the more interesting aspects of the new experience is the physical Red House brick which was extracted from Frida Kahlo’s own house.
Mara Romeo, Kahlo’s great-great-niece, said: “We have extracted a brick from the red house, forming the foundation of our metaverse. This project gives all of you access through this new digital world, to the secrets of the family, to the secrets of Frida Kahlo.”
The idea of this physical brick and its accompanying NFT is to connect the existing Red House in the physical world with the metaverse in the digital world.
Who is Frida Kahlo?
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist famous for her evocative self-portraits exploring themes such as pain, death, the human body, and its identity.
The theme of pain was not accidental. Kahlo’s life was filled with physical suffering, from polio contracted at the age of five, to a terrible bus accident which left her sedentary and forced her to endure horrific medical interventions.
She often painted from her bed due to the pain she endured from the medical procedures she underwent.
Kahlo also suffered several miscarriages despite her strong desire to have children. As a result, approximately a third of her 143 paintings are self-portraits that symbolize both her physical and psychological wounds.
Despite her tragic life, Kahlo left a legacy of art which continues to amaze audiences around the world.
Why is the Metaverse Art Week in Decentraland important
Frida Kahlo’s family recorded her history the way they intended it. Forever imprinted on the blockchain, immutable, and available for the world to see, Kahlo’s legacy lives on.
People are slowly discovering the full utility of the metaverse. Play-to-earn and exploring new worlds is just one aspect of the new Web3 blockchain revolution.
But the ability to record history, imprint people’s legacies, and prevent the rest of the world from tampering with the truth is key.
As the Meta History: Museum of War said in a Tweet recently: “Each destroyed museum, monument, or street is a valuable part of the country’s culture.
“To help preserve and recover Ukraine’s culture @Depositphotos created a series of thematic NFT artworks for sale.”
Each destroyed museum, monument, or street is a valuable part of the country’s culture !
To help preserve and recover Ukraine’s culture, @Depositphotos create a series of thematic NFT artworks for sale: https://t.co/DeGz9mLSG1 pic.twitter.com/4YGMtHVJUg
— Meta History: Museum of War (@Meta_History_UA) August 26, 2022
That’s why events like the Metaverse Art Week in Decentraland are key. From families recording their loved one’s histories to charities recording the atrocities of war, the utility of blockchain is slowly becoming apparent.
Artefacts, art, and monuments which would otherwise forever be destroyed through violence remain forever imprinted on the blockchain and through NFTs.
That’s why the work of Decentraland and Ezel.Life is so important.
