Women in the United Arab Emirates – and across the Gulf region – face discrimination daily. The UAE government has been doing much in righting the imbalances in women’s rights in recent years. Women such as Amrita Sethi champion women’s rights by jumping headfirst into male-dominated sectors to change the status of women.
Amrita is the first NFT artist in Dubai (and the UAE). She declares: “Web3, NFTs, and the Metaverse are changing the narrative, and I am here to show through my art that anything is possible in the new world of web3 – and that the only obstacle is your imagination.”
She’s not only minted the first women-made NFT art pieces in Dubai but she’s created her own art genre called The SoundBYTES and her own language called The AlphaBYTES. This genre fuses art, fashion, technology, storytelling and NFTs through hybrid reality experiences, such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). The SoundBYTES merges sound, technology and storytelling with NFTs, giving her a perfect platform to showcase her dynamic art form based on sound. Her other NFTs bridge the gap between physical and digital (phygital) art and makes use of augmented and virtual reality integrated with art and fashion.
Through web3, NFTs, and the Metaverse, Amrita is also changing women’s status across the UAE. She left her corporate career after 15 years in some of the world’s largest multinational finance companies for a deeper calling in 2020.
Her unique artwork has been recognized by Forbes, CNN, and BBC World News and won numerous awards. She was selected to create live art installations and activations for Expo 2020 across the Middle East and Europe. Amrita also received a prestigious Golden Visa Residency in Dubai in 2021 for her contribution to the digital art market in the UAE.
Amrita painted one of the world’s largest ever augmented reality murals – and it was the first of its kind in the UAE. She painted a mural titled “Future NFT Dubai” on the side of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) at the Innovation Hub in Dubai, which was ironic as the DIFC is one of the largest centralized financial centers in the world and a landmark of her previous career.
She recalls her journey’s tipping point: “Painting a MetaMask man, the word DeFi, images of Bitcoins, Ethereums and blockchains on a wall propping up this traditional financial institution was the moment I realized web3 will change the global narrative, and at that moment being personally honored as an artist in being able to share this new story.”
Since then, Amrita’s created the world’s first AR abaya and a fashion line with physical and NFT components. She’s currently working on the first mindful meditation Metaverse experiences through VR in a collection titled The CrystalBYTES, in which a user meditates to a floating crystal while sitting on a floating yoga mat in an experience merging human consciousness with technology in the Vault Hill Metaverse.
This artist believes that web3 has moved from fringe to frontier but still has a long way to go to become familiar to all. “We are still on the bleeding edge of technology, and as the space evolves, we will continue to see amazing leaps in this space.”
Asked what the Metaverse means to her, Amrita remarks: “Simply put, it’s our future normality where we interact exactly how we do in real life but in a virtual world. Currently, we go to a website, and someone else is on the same website, but we can’t see what they are doing or looking at. Now imagine you now go to the website as a 3d avatar, and everyone who’s on the same website can now see you and interact with you in real-time.”
She continues: “The crazy thing is that in the Metaverse, we can hang out with each other as ourselves – as we look in real life – or we can create our own avatars to express ourselves in a way we couldn’t before. You never know: you might meet someone in the Metaverse that is part-unicorn and part-seahorse!”
The world of art is changing dramatically with the advance of the Metaverse. Amrita is at the forefront of that, driving this shift. “I want to show people that NFTs, web3, and the Metaverse are more than just hype; they will change how we create and interact with art. The Metaverse creates a paradigm shift in creativity and experience for future generations.”
She views art in the Metaverse as a multidimensional, multi-sensory immersive experience that fundamentally changes how people understand art.
When asked what excites her most about the future, Amrita shares: “The only thing that stops you in the Metaverse is your imagination. NFTs, web3, and the Metaverse will substantially change every aspect of our lives. Web3 is going to reorganize every aspect of society.”
Website: amrita.art
