Djimon Hounsou & Láolú collaborate on African Artist NFT Collection: “TIME TO HEAL”

Two-time Academy Award-nominated actor and humanitarian Djimon Hounsou from Benin, West Africa, has formed a collaboration with acclaimed, Brooklyn-based performance & visual artist Láolú Senbanjo from Nigeria to create the digital artist series “TIME TO HEAL”. This series consists of five unique portraits featuring Djimon Hounsou as a canvas onto which LÁOLÚ applied his famous body art known as the “Sacred Art of the Orí“.

The exclusive artwork series will be sold in a premium auction on the Binance NFT Marketplace between November 10 and 18, 2021. Proceeds will be split between the artist and the Djimon Hounsou Foundation, our nonprofit that aims to reconnect the African Diaspora with the motherland and fight modern-day slavery & human trafficking.

In the collaboration between these two West African artists, LÁOLÚ painted Yoruba patterns and symbols related to alertness, compassion, and the quest for freedom onto Djimon’s head, right hand, and left shoulder. The result is an external reflection of Djimon’s inner essence as an African warrior of light. As the actor – who famously starred in Steven Spielberg’s slave-revolt movie Amistad – describes it:

I feel this compelling need, this inherent obligation to give back to my continent, to my people, and to champion the idea of reconciliation and reconnection.

Says LÁOLÚ, whose Sacred Art of the Orí body ritual was also featured on Beyoncé’s Grammy award-winning “Lemonade” album:

There is so much we can do when we come together. Through my work I’ve always sought to connect the world to my Yoruba roots. With this project, we’re doing that on a large scale by sharing not only our own stories but that of the diaspora within the digital landscape.

To participate in this charitable auction in support of the Djimon Hounsou Foundation, traders need to open a cryptocurrency account on binance.com and bid for the artwork here between November 10 (12:00pm EST) and end on November 15 (midnight EST). Trades will be accepted in BNB, the cryptocurrency coin that powers the Binance ecosystem.

On November 9, 2021, Djimon and LÁOLÚ will also join Binance for a live ‘Ask Me Anything’ chat on Binance YouTube, discussing NFTs, their entrance into the crypto and blockchain space and how NFTs can impact African artists. Join us there at 11am ET.

In June 2021, Binance launched the Binance NFT Marketplace, which supports and promotes an open market for artists, creators, crypto enthusiasts, NFT collectors and creative fans around the world. According to Exchange Data, NFTs have an almost US$28 Billion market cap to date and, between January and April 2021, the NFT art market grew by more than more than 800%.

This is the most recent collaboration for Binance Charity’s NFT For Good Campaign, which enables creators to convert their art and creativity into meaningful global action targeting social and humanitarian issues. Binance NFT has selected “Time To Heal” as a meaningful event in the contemporary art space.

The series follows the success of the Binance NFT premium collection, featuring digital artworks by icons such as Andy Warhol & Salvador Dalí.