The name of artist and poet Vasily Popov is already inscribed in the history of contemporary art as that of a pioneer. A laureate of numerous prestigious awards in culture and the arts, he became the first artist in the world whose NFT artwork has traveled into space.

This event, as if drawn from the pages of a science fiction novel, seamlessly united three of the author’s passions: poetry, space, and digital technology. Vasily is a poet and artist whose works are created not with ink and paint, but with the trajectories of satellites, asteroids, and comets—and recorded not on paper, but in the timeless digital ledger of the Universe. He reminds us that even in a world of data and algorithms, the central narrative remains the human drive toward the transcendent—the desire to leave a mark, whether in the blockchain or in space, and to find authenticity through it.


“Entities”: When Poetry Takes Shape

In 2021, at the height of the NFT boom, Vasily Popov discovered a new dimension of himself—as a digital artist. Although he had always sketched in the margins of manuscripts and painted, it was the digital medium that allowed his imagery to gain an independent new life.

Thus, the collection “Entities Meta” was born:


https://opensea.io/collection/entities-1-101


The artist himself describes his works as “images that arrive like flashes” and defines his direction in the NFT space as “expressive-naïve art.” This unique combination of spontaneity, deep inner vision, and modern technology quickly found its audience.


A Painting’s Journey to the ISS

The project that brought Popov international recognition far beyond literary circles was the launch of his artwork into space. The idea emerged in 2021.


On March 18, 2022, the spacecraft Soyuz MS-21 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. On board, alongside the crew, was Vasily Popov’s art object. The artwork spent six months aboard the International Space Station. This project became a true bridge between the earthly and the extraterrestrial. After returning to Earth, the piece “Space” became the centerpiece of the exhibition “The Art of the Possible” at the Central Museum of Communications in St. Petersburg. The exhibition, consisting of 16 works, explored the boundless creative and scientific potential of humanity in a high-tech world. A true poet and artist knows how to listen to the world and enter into dialogue with it. Popov makes the Universe itself a co-author of his work.


His NFT piece “Space” is not simply a painting about space—it is a painting that has been in space. This becomes a powerful poetic metaphor: art as a living organism that can be sent on a kind of pilgrimage, returning transformed and carrying invisible traces of infinity. Perhaps this is why Vasily seeks to connect with visionaries of the modern era who see a great future in space. In Indonesia, he met Elon Musk, shook his hand, and presented him with a video of the artwork’s journey into orbit.

Popov explores what memory and soul mean in the digital age. By sending an NFT into space and bringing it back, he performs a kind of initiation ritual for a digital object. This process echoes ancient rites, in which objects were imbued with meaning and power by being sent to sacred places.


His works become relics of a new era—where proof of a miracle lies not in belief, but in a cryptographic signature on the blockchain and a photograph from the ISS. He creates a new mythology in which value arises not from the rarity of pixels, but from the uniqueness and verifiability of the experience the object has undergone.


The World Garden of Poetry: A Synthesis of Arts

Today, Vasily Popov continues to work at the intersection of poetry, painting, and advanced technology. In 2024, his collection “Entities Meta”—from which the artwork “Space” traveled into real outer space—was recognized as the Best NFT Collection at the Crypto Awards. Yet the artist looks even further ahead. He envisions the creation of the World Garden of Poetry:


https://entities-meta.com


This would be a physical space where digital technologies preserve the memory of great poets from around the world. In this garden, each tree would be dedicated to a classical poet, and visitors could listen to poetry while walking through thematic alleys—of love, nature, and philosophy. It would become the ultimate embodiment of his creative method, where nature, poetry, and innovation merge into one. Vasily Popov is among the first artists to demonstrate that in the first quarter of the 21st century, digital art knows no boundaries—neither geographical nor physical. He has shown that poetry can exist not only in books but also on the blockchain, and that paintings can traverse the vastness of the Universe, opening new horizons of beauty for humanity.