The Palm Foundation and ZsONAMACO, the most significant art fair in Latin America, recently collaborated for the first time to showcase NFTs by kickstarting the Palm Foundation Grant Program. The 2023 edition of ZsONAMACO held in Mexico City, welcomed over 77,000 visitors and featured over 210 exhibitors showcasing art, design, photography, and antiques. Palm Foundation was the only booth at the fair showcasing NFT art.

Cara Romero: First Palm Foundation Grantee

Our first grantee is Cara Romero, a photographer and enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, selected from a pre-selection of five artists proposed by the curatorial committee of ZsONAMACO. The call was open to artists identifying as women, non-binary, Latinx, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, or institutionally underrepresented communities. Romero approaches her practice through the multiple lenses of her lived experiences as a Native American woman, with an interest in cultural memory and collective history from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives. Excited about Cara’s Web3 journey, PalmFdn and Obilium celebrated the collaboration to mint her photographs in NFT format for the first time, which were exhibited in physical and digital form during ZsONAMACO’s 2023 edition.

Engaging Visitors with #ZsONAMACOPOC

Attendees of the ZsONAMACO event in Mexico City who stopped by the Palm Foundation booth could claim the #ZsONAMACOPOC, which unlocked their ability to vote to allocate grants to artists selected by the curatorial committee of El Patio by ZsONAMACO . We distributed over 400 QR Code mint solutions that facilitate a mint IRL without the need for a whitelist nor to hold the network token to pay gas fees, as the mint is subsidized through a backend wallet.

Onboarding and Minting Process

This allowed our team to support fair-goers in onboarding them to MetaMask and minting a #ZsONAMACOPOC. A total of 44 #ZsONAMACOPOC were claimed by following Palm Foundation instructions on downlading Metamask. Based on the data sample we collected, we can observe that approximately 43% of the holders of #ZsONAMACOPOC are new users, as evidenced by the fact that 19 addresses that claimed the token had no prior transaction history. The remaining addresses include 18 wallet addresses with their first on-chain transaction over a year ago, and 7 with their first transaction within 11 months. It will be interesting to see how these numbers evolve in the future as we continue to deploy onboarding events during IRL events.

Palm Foundation Grant Program Success

The response to our Grant Program and distribution process has been very positive. The remaining 14 winners of the Palm Foundation Grants will showcase their artworks at El Patio by ZsONAMACO, where they will be on display and for sale in an outdoor landscape spanning over 7,000 square meters at Santa Terra, creating a unique experience for the public. The Palm Foundation Grant winning pieces will also be archived and sold digitally in the form of NFTs minted on the Palm Network. Community Voting Participation

The Palm community decided on the final grant amount the 14 winners will receive from Palm Foundation. There were two ways to participate:

• #OGPOC: If your wallet was added to the allowed list, selected based on activity on the Ethereum and Palm networks, you could claim the #OGSpecialEditionPOC which will unlock your ability to vote for the artists of El Patio. To be eligible for the allowed list, your wallet must have traded at least 0.5+ ETH or have interacted with the Palm network.
• #ZsONAMACOPOC: If you attended the ZsONAMACO event in Mexico City between February 8th and 10th, you could claim your #ZsONAMACOPOC, which also unlocked your ability to vote for the artists of El Patio.

The #OGPOC was officially launched on February 3, and over 1 million crypto wallets and NFT believers were whitelisted to claim it. By February 10, 533 OGPOCs had been claimed, and an average of 410 voters per vote (3 votes) resulted in an approximately 83% participation rate, above the benchmark.

Palm Foundation's Impact on Digital Art

The Palm Foundation Grant Program and community vote helped to ensure that a diverse range of artists could participate in the event and receive recognition and support for their work. During the ZsONAMACO Conversations Program on Saturday, February 11 at 7 pm (Mexico City), Andrea Lerdo, executive director of Palm Foundation, broke down the Palm Foundation Grant Program and the new era of digital art. She also announced the 14 winners of El Patio by ZⓈONAMACO, part of ABC Art Baja California, a cultural festival to be held from March 10 to April 23, 2023.

Stay tuned for more updates as we announce new claims and exciting developments for March. We invite you to join our community and connect with us on social media to stay up-to-date on all the latest news and events.

If you are in Baja for El Patio, we invite you to visit and experience the incredible art and culture on display. We can’t wait to see you there!