For decades, the art world has consistently echoed a flagrant devaluation and marginalization of women's work, a defining notion that has made more women disinterested in expounding their art skills. The NFT world is barely 7 years old, but it seems to be already imitating this abnormality. With the way it proposes an unconstrained and more lucrative way to create and sell off artworks, hardly anyone would think that there are only 16% of women artists in NFTs. If you dig further, you'd find that only 5% of NFT sales were accrued by women in the past 21 months. So when Yam Karkai created a women-only project with 10,000 artworks representing diverse women all by herself, she wasn't sure of how much attention it would attract. But this collection, which Karkai later expanded to ‘World of Women Galaxy’ in March, sealed huge landmarks.
While Karkai was hopeful that the strong artworks would draw in people who shared the same values as her, she didn't think extensively of its success. She tells nft now, “Even though you dream it, and you hope for it, there’s always a part of you that tones it down”. Being one of the few women trying to build diversity and enhance inclusivity in a male-dominated sector, there's only so much you can think of. The uncertainty that creeps and the wave of reminders where your place as a woman is enough to deter anyone.
WOW collection via Opensea
The World of Women (WOW) community was created to redefine the representation, diversity, and equality of artists in the world of NFTs. It does this by placing its focus on women hence the collection. The platform's founding members are a group of four friends led by Yam Karkai. Since its launch, the WOW team has grown remarkably and now has 9 members. Their motto since creation has been to develop a powerful and inclusive community as they represent this aim through their collections. Karkai says: “Seeing the underrepresentation in the NFT space and Web3 just made it obvious to me that a collection of powerful and diverse women was the way to go in order to have an impact. And it seems like it did!”
WOW collection via Opensea
The WOW collection is presently one of the biggest projects in the NFT scene, currently at a 9 ETH floor price on the secondary marketplace, Opensea. Each artwork details the peculiarities of various women from multiple races and ethnicities generated in rarity. In achieving this, Yam Karkai used a unique computer algorithm that combined 11 characteristics with 189 rare features. One perk of purchasing from this collection is that the owners can download the NFTs in ultra-high-resolution. They'll be allowed to exclusively access customized pre-sales and members-only discounts and offers.
