In what has been described as both a novel digital restitution, and alternatively as a "breach of copyright," the Congolese Plantation Workers Art League (CATPC) says that they are claiming their heritage by "using the magic powers of NFTs" (Non-Fungible Tokens). Made from an image of a sculpture, their newly-minted Balot NFT aims to "put digital ownership of culture back into the hands of the many and helps buy back land once stolen and exhausted, reintroducing sustainable ways of governance, land use, and community-building." They say that with this new model of restitution, blockchain-based NFT technology can become a tool for decolonization.

At the center of this initiative, the Balot sculpture was carved in 1931, during a Pende uprising against rape and other atrocities carried out by the Unilever plantation system and Belgian colonial agents in Congo. The sculpture depicts the angry spirit of beheaded Belgian officer Maximilien Balot, and was carved to control Balot's spirit and make him work for the Pende people.

Today, the sculpture is in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond. CATPC have said that their requests have been gone nowhere for the object to be loaned to White Cube, the new museum led by Dutch artist Renzo Martens on the Unilever plantation. 

The Balot NFT is a way "to claim back what is theirs," says the collective. Buyers of the limited edition NFTs would get a digital rendering of the sculpture, based on photographic reproduction taken from the VMFA's website.

A spokesman for the VMFA said the “image was lifted directly from the museum’s website without permission," which “violates our open access policy and is unacceptable and unprofessional”. The NFTs have stirred accusations from the VMFA of a breach of copyright, reports the Guardian.

Says the collective, funds from NFT sales later this year would not only be used to buy back land, but "each Balot will live on the blockchain with royalties from resales going into replanting forests, reintroducing biodiversity, offsetting carbon emissions and providing local food security."

Adds CATPC: "Impoverishment on the plantations is rampant: it is now essential that local communities make use of this technology and control the powers of their lost art, rather than the institutions that were built on the exploitation of their labor and culture."