Community Acquisition Proposals

Today, we’re excited to launch the next phase of Arkive: community-led acquisition proposals.

Up to this point, Arkive’s curatorial team has helped craft sub-themes, choosing a handful of selected works for the community to consider every 3-4 weeks. All falling under the theme When Technology Was a Game Changer, community members have come together to acquire everything from the patent to the first-ever electronic computer to Aria Dean’s Eulogy for a Black Mass (2017) to Madonna’s “Vogue” fans.

And now, you’ll get to propose culturally significant artifacts and art that the rest of the community will vote to acquire!

How it works

The end-to-end process of submission and voting all happens in Arkive’s members only portal, the Atrium.

1. To start, head over to the Atrium and click the “Proposals” tab on the left navigation bar.
2. Click “Submit proposal" in the top right.
   
3. Fill out the submission form, complete with all required fields.
   

For this initial round, we’ll offer a VIP Art Basel Miami Beach ticket and a 2-night stay at Pharrell Williams’s The Goodtime Hotel in Miami during the week of the fair to the Arkive member that sources the work we eventually acquire. All other members will also have the opportunity to earn Arkive Points for their community submissions.

Submission guidelines

Not sure what to submit? Well, here are some guidelines:

1. Proposals are capped at $100,000 USD (for now).
2. We should be able to directly access the seller. We must be able to confirm and reserve the work from the seller before it goes live for voting by the community.
   
3. Suggested works must be in conversation with an item from the existing collection. This means, you have to relate the work to one of the existing 7 works we’ve acquired. For example, from the MTA VMA Moonman Prototype, you could suggest another trophy prototype, a space-related work, or a music television work.
   
4. It should be “culturally significant” and Arkive-Worthy. What exactly does that mean? Read more via our Collections Strategy overview. Here’s another way we’ve thought about it:

Timeline

After proposing works, the Arkive core team will verify all submitted works are available to be acquired and place them on hold.

The Atrium will then update to show proposed works, where members will be able to vote with allocation-based voting. That means you’ll have 10,000 votes to allocate across all of the works over the span of a week.

When the voting period ends, the results will be revealed and the core team will facilitate the process of acquiring the work. The work will also have its own gallery page created, highlighting selected community member comments from the acquisition round.

The future of Arkive

This next phase of Arkive is centered around giving power to our community members to have more autonomy and decision-making power around what’s acquired into the collection. Arkive began with the simple question, “What if the Smithsonian was curated and owned by the internet?” and this is our next step in realizing that dream.

As Arkive continues to grow member capabilities to curate and acquire works into the collection, the hope is that we can truly build a collection from the bottom-up. Come join the discussion in Discord to engage in the upcoming round, or apply for membership today.