Blockchain may still feel like a buzzword to some, but for the House of Electronic Arts (HEK)—a museum in Basel dedicated to digital culture, media art, and technology—and the Tezos Foundation, it’s a vital tool for expanding the museum experience and helping artists connect with audiences. The two institutions recently announced a year-long partnership bringing together virtual and physical exhibitions, workshops, and long-term initiatives focused on the preservation of digital art.

HEK and Tezos’ relationship goes back to 2022, when the museum publicly outlined its commitment to embracing blockchain and Web3 as a means of supporting digital art and media. Tezos functions as a digital ecosystem that enables artists, curators, and institutions to create, exhibit, sell, and preserve artworks on the blockchain.

ARTnews spoke with Aleksandra Artamonovskaja, head of art at TriliTech, Tezos’ R&D hub in London, about the HEK partnership. TriliTech is the team within the Tezos ecosystem that focuses on innovation, technical development, and broader ecosystem initiatives, including digital art and cultural programs.

“Our primary objective is growth, adoption, and education—onboarding more people into blockchain through meaningful new experiences,” she said. “But growth alone isn’t enough. We’re also asking: what does success actually look like for the creative economy?”

At the heart of the 2026 partnership are two exhibitions hosted on virtual.hek, HEK’s online platform, alongside an outdoor presentation at the museum during Art Basel. Six international artists working with digital and blockchain-based practices will be featured, with their work released in collaboration with Objkt, a marketplace built on the Tezos blockchain. But Artamonovskaja emphasized that it’s not just about the artworks themselves. “One of the most important things we do is bring together world-class talent to foster hybrid experiences,” she said. “This builds on initiatives the Tezos Foundation has supported for years, including our second-year partnership with the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), where the focus was on blockchain as a medium.”

The goal, she explained, is to create a kind of “museum without walls.” The online exhibitions allow curators to spotlight artists who might not traditionally have access to institutional spaces, while the outdoor Basel presentation extends the experience into the public realm. And it’s not only about visibility. The partnership also includes on-site kiosks and workshops, offering visitors hands-on opportunities to better understand NFTs, blockchain, and digital ownership. “Education is absolutely crucial,” Artamonovskaja said. “A certain level of grounding is necessary to fully understand and engage with work that uses blockchain as an integral component.”

Sustainability and long-term impact are also key priorities. HEK is participating in the EU COST Action EMBARK, leading an international training school on NFT preservation at the ZKM museum in Karlsruhe, Germany. The initiative aims to equip professionals with the knowledge needed to maintain blockchain-based art over time—a concern Artamonovskaja takes seriously. “Historically, traditional gallery systems have struggled to support the long tail of artists—emerging creators, hybrid practitioners, and those who don’t fit neatly into established categories,” she said. “Blockchain offered a solution to a long-standing issue: how do you assign ownership and value to something that’s inherently digital?”

For Artamonovskaja, the real excitement lies in the community and dialogue that blockchain enables. She noted that roughly half of collectors on Tezos-based platforms like Objkt are artists themselves, fostering a culture of mutual support and creative exchange. “That kind of patronage model is rare in other art markets,” she added. “The shared dialogue goes beyond financial transactions and creates spaces for connection and cultural exchange.”

The HEK-Tezos partnership also reflects TriliTech’s broader mission of bridging the gap between digital and physical art worlds on a global scale. Alongside the Basel program, Artamonovskaja and her team continue to organize international meetups, exhibitions, and educational initiatives, aiming to show audiences what the future of digital art might look like—lived, experienced, and mediated through institutions. Last November, for example, she played a key role in organizing Art on Tezos Berlin, a three-day event celebrating digital, AI, and generative art on the Tezos blockchain. “Ultimately, this is about education,” she said, “helping people understand what our digital future might actually look like through lived artistic experience.”

Artamonovskaja may be optimistic about the future of digital art, but how does last year’s cancellation of events like NFT Paris—Europe’s largest annual conference for the Web3, NFT, and digital ownership community—reflect the market’s overall health?

“I think there’s a balance between old and new things entering the scene, like Zero10 [Art Basel’s new platform for art of the digital age], which is a much stronger signal for digital art than NFT Paris,” she said. “What we’re witnessing now is a consolidation phase, where a more thoughtful and structured approach to digital art appreciation is emerging. Another example is Sotheby’s inclusion of Robert Alice’s blockchain work in its premium evening sale in New York last fall. And a few years ago, there was only one digital art gallery on the Lower East Side—now there are at least three. The construction of the Digital Art Museum in Hamburg is another encouraging sign for the market, so too Refik Anadol’s Dataland in LA and the recently opened SOLO CSV in Madrid. That’s hundreds of thousands of square feet dedicated to digital art across the globe.”