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Your Daytime Fireworks

"I am constantly in the pursuit of potential creative breakthroughs…the experience of working with TRLab (twice now) and experimenting with NFTs made me appreciate firsthand the special importance of community engagement in the NFT world, which seems to resonate with diverse aspects of my art methodology: working with different cultural and regional communities around the globe over the years, inviting audiences to participate in the making of my artworks and transforming this process into an integral part of the works, and creating firework events that attract hundreds of millions of viewers who watch on-site and online… This is how Your Daytime Fireworks came into being."

—— Cai Guo-Qiang

Visit Your Daytime Fireworks
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Cai Guo-Qiang, Concept Sketch for Your Daytime Fireworks, 2021. Pencil and marker on paper, 21.6 x 27.9 cm.

As Cai's third NFT, Your Daytime Fireworks invites NFT players to embark on a magical journey to explore and participate in Cai's world of daytime fireworks.

Cai started creating artworks with gunpowder as a medium while still residing in his hometown of Quanzhou, China. During his time in Japan from the end of 1986 until 1995, Cai gradually developed his signature outdoor explosion events. His first real daytime firework event was Black Rainbow, realized in 2005 in Valencia, Spain, a major fireworks center of the world; the black fireworks exploded like traditional Chinese ink across the sky. In 2011, Cai realized Black Ceremony in Doha, Qatar by using firework shells fitted with computer chips to designate an exact blasting time and location. Black Ceremony marked the first time Cai realized colorful daytime fireworks. Major projects since then include Elegy for the opening of his solo exhibition The Ninth Wave in Shanghai in 2014, and City of Flowers in the Sky for the opening of his solo exhibition at the Uffizi Galleries in 2018. Inspired by Botticelli's masterpiece Primavera, the latter explosion event was realized above Piazzale Michelangelo overlooking the city of Florence, shooting out thousands of Renaissance flowers into the sky…

Daytime fireworks are relatively safer than traditional, widely used nighttime fireworks and the way they produce their visual effects differ as well. Daytime fireworks are more subject to change with shifting natural environmental conditions such as weather; the relevant safety distances also differ with local regulations. Over the years, Cai has been making consistent efforts to push for the development of more eco-conscious fireworks with reduced smoke and sulfur emissions. The daytime fireworks that he created utilize biodegradable colored powders, minimizing environmental impact.

Your Daytime Fireworks invites collectors to set off their own virtual daytime fireworks. Over the course of the project, daily special announcements will be issued, allowing collectors to choose a day to set off their fireworks based on their understanding of the nature of daytime fireworks as well as Cai's art and life. Daytime fireworks of different varieties and effects will ensue.

Collectors will follow in the footsteps of the artist as they undertake their own exploration and participation, feeling the unexpected joy Cai experienced as he set off fireworks in different regions and under different weather conditions across the globe. Over the course of the project, collectors will also practice the pursuit of environmental protection with their own digital fireworks.

Click on the link below to learn more.

Meet the artist