Lisa Ray’s new NFT platform promises to be your art sherpa

Lisa Ray’s tryst with art is not entirely new. In January, she co-founded TheUpsideSpace, a curator-led digital art and NFT platform, with Singapore-based art collector and philanthropist Ayesha Khan to focus on art from South-East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. But when you plough through all that and dig deeper, this technology has the potential to correct a lot of problems embedded in the traditional art world for artists, collectors and even gallerists.” For one, it allows for greater representation of voices from South-East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East in the global art conversation, regions Ray and Khan are passionate about highlighting. However, we need to understand how technology can be used to transform the creative ecosystem.” Some of the curators on board include Myna Mukherjee of Engendered, a transnational arts and human rights organisation, white noise, an NFT based art endeavour founded by Hari Pilaka, Parth Taco & Sajid Wajid Shaikh, actor-artist Kelly Dorji, writer Bandana Tewari, and Clara Che Wei Peh, a curator and arts writer based in Singapore, to name a few. During the Mumbai Gallery Weekend in January, they worked with the APRE Art House to showcase physical works and NFTs by artists from South Asia in the show Futur Proche.