Filmer of Ethiopia Famine Is Face of NFT to Archive African Past

(Bloomberg) -- Kenyan photojournalist Mohamed Amin is best known for capturing the world’s attention with images of Ethiopia’s 1984 famine that inspired the Live Aid concerts. 

Now five of his images are set to be the face of a more modern phenomenon: an NFT to raise awareness and $250,000 in startup funds to archive African cultural work and history. 

“What we found out is that there are very few archivists in Africa,” said Salim Amin, the son of Mohamed, who died in 1996 after his plane was hijacked and crashed in the Indian Ocean. “We are losing so much of our history because nobody is really interested in putting it together.”

The plan is being driven by Salim and the Kenyan foundation that bares his father’s name in collaboration with renowned African NFT artist Osinachi, whose work has sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. An NFT, or nonfungible token, is a unique asset -- often digital art -- that is registered on a blockchain. 

Throughout his decades-long career, Mohamed documented the wars and coups that accompanied the rise and fall of many African leaders as well as the continent’s cultures, flora and fauna. While most famous for his Ethiopia famine filming, he lost an arm during an explosion while covering that country’s civil war in 1991. He also travelled and worked extensively in the Middle East.

Archive Teaching

Funding from the NFT will be used to both preserve African history and teach people around the continent how to archive, Salim said. 

The 51-year-old is also collaborating with Andrew Berkowitz, a web3 entrepreneur who co-founded online platform Socialstack, on a decentralized autonomous organization called AfrofutureDAO, which aims to support African NFT artists by commissioning them for work and offering a platform for distribution. Part of the profit from that venture will also be used to preserve the continent’s historical artifacts, Salim said. 

There are valuable items around the continent -- including in museums and owned by families -- that are not archived and risk getting lost, according to Salim. “They don’t know what to do with it. It is just sitting in a box in the basement. So, we are hoping after we finish ours, we can go out there, collect, digitize and monetize it.”

Properly archiving his father’s work will cost about $3 million, Salim said. 

“My long term goal is to make it available for educational use, that can be given free of charge to every school in Africa,” Salim said.

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