As War Continues in Sudan, Artist Rayan Elnayal is Using Blockchain to Help Civilians and Raise Awareness

April 15 marked the one-year anniversary of the war in Sudan. The conflict between the Sudan Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has displaced an estimated 8.5 million people. As many as 25 million are facing acute food insecurity, and 19 million children are now out of school.

In the face of waning media interest and elusive resolution, the Sudanese-British artist Rayan Elnayal launched Art 4 Sudan – “the first art curation dedicated to Sudanese humanitarian causes within the web3 space” – to raise funds for those in crisis.

Elnayal and a group of core organizers rallied dozens of artists to the cause, raising awareness of both the Sudan war and the blockchain’s potential to become a critical tool in humanitarian efforts. Recently, she and I sat down to discuss the project, as well as the influences of magic realists and futurism on her work. In tandem, they can help us re-interpret our pasts so that we might realize a more equitable future.

Elnayal was born and raised in London, but she grew up spending significant time in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital where much of her extended family is based. Her worldview was shaped by these places and their histories. She pursued architecture at London’s University of Greenwich, completing her thesis on Sudanese futurism that was, in part, a reaction to a Euro-centric curriculum. “It left a lot of narratives and people out of the equation,” she told me. “So I found solace in magic realism.”

Magic realism is an art style that blurs fantastical elements with otherwise ordinary settings. These flourishes can offer new lenses into our own day-to-day realities. For Elnayal, Sudanese visual artist and diplomat Ibrahim El-Salahi and Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih were notable sources of refuge. “These are artists who may not identify as magic realists,” she said, “but their work is very magic realist to me.”

Elnayal cited Salih’s postcolonial novel Season of Migration to the North as a resonant example. Salih represents the psychological impact of British colonialism (Sudan gained independence in 1956 from a complicated colonial rule in which both Britain and Egypt asserted claims) through his London-based protagonist, Mustafa Sa'eed. In the book, Sa’eed grapples with racism and alienation, which manifest in his narration as fragmented memories and a sense of unreality.

These themes reflect pieces of Elnayal’s identity – and readily inform her art: futuristic visuals deeply rooted in Sudan and its diaspora. Armed with the munitions of magic realism, Elnayal imagines the “futurist aesthetics” of “everyday spaces,” elevating Sudanese tradition beyond the cultural memory of its colonial past.

The artist first explored the blockchain to help her sell 1-of-1’s and track ownership of her work through secondary and tertiary collectors – difficult tasks in the traditional art world. She minted some photographs on the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace SuperRare, but she didn’t find the broader culture to be very diverse or supportive, so she stepped back from the on-chain world.

Then the war started. “With this war almost everyone I know has lost their generational home – they're either internally displaced or have been displaced to nearby countries,” she said. “The thing is – a lot like what the Palestinians are also going through – getting into Egypt is extremely expensive.”

Both Sudanese people and Palestinians have used crowdfunding platforms to try and raise funds to evacuate people, Elnayal told me, but those spaces are “heavily monitored.” They often require ID verification processes that can take too long to get funds to those in crisis – or prevent them from participating in the system entirely.

“That was why there was an interest in raising funds in the web3 space,” she said, “because on the blockchain you can send funds to someone's wallet quickly without having to upload your passport. It made collecting funds very, very simple.”

Educating people on the Sudan war and web3 while concurrently preparing the project itself, however, was not simple. It was a monumental lift for her and her co-organizers: kyë, CJ Neema and Faraz Ghorbanpou – and it wasn’t an immediate success.

When Elnayal reached out to various NFT marketplaces to support her vision for a collective, arts-driven fundraising project, her requests were largely ignored or rejected. Some people did begin to take notice, though, and eventually the artist and creative producer Leo Crane helped her find a home on the Solana-based marketplace Exchange.art.

“We are honored to be part of Art 4 Sudan and to support the incredible efforts of Rayan Elnayal and the participating artists,” Exchange.art founder Larisa Barbu said in a statement. “It's a testament to the transformative power of art and technology in addressing humanitarian challenges.”

Momentum built from there. Sotheby’s signed on to support, and dozens of artists – painters, photographers, animators, digital designers and stop-motion creatives – contributed pieces. The project went live on March 22, and most pieces sold out in the first weekend.

After each sale, artists transferred earnings to Elnayal’s wallet so she could disperse the money. “We had an amazing level of trust between us all,” she told me. “I wish there was a better system, but I think the transparency of the blockchain gets people trusting each other.”

On-chain, both artists and collectors can see and track the movement of funds – an amenity that most off-chain platforms don’t offer. “There are often issues with raising money in cash where people just don't know where the funds are going – there's a complete lack of transparency there,” she said. “I wish there were more initiatives like this happening because [the blockchain] just feels like the perfect place to do it.”

Elnayal ultimately exchanged the crypto for fiat currency, distributing more than $5,000 between large humanitarian causes – like Darfur Women Action Group, SAPA and the SB Sudan aid fund – and individual families fleeing the war. She used Twitter to communicate progress, posting updates and receipts after sending the cash, encouraging people to donate further – and many did.

The fruits of their labor, then, amounted to more than just the $5,000 in cash – the project renewed focus on the ongoing plight of the Sudanese people.

To various artists, it also brought awareness of the blockchain. Thirty percent of those involved in Art 4 Sudan, Elnayal said, had never minted before. And some of those – finding power in provenance and decentralization – have already minted other work on-chain.

The blockchain, in some ways, is an apt instrument for both futurist and magic realist. The technology was constructed to exist outside the jurisdiction of imperial nation states. Theoretically it can be used to redistribute wealth to those who continue to be casualties of colonialism. It can elevate left-out narratives, letting them live beyond the confines of our stunted, Euro-centric understanding of the world.

As Tayeb Salih wrote in Season of Migration to the North: “We teach people in order to open up their minds and release their captive powers. But we cannot predict the result. Freedom - we free their minds from superstition. We give the people the keys of the future to act therein as they wish.”