For the Amazonian Yawanawa people, ‘medicine’ has the power to take you inside a vision to a place you have never been. By working with Australian artist Lynette Wallworth, Hushahu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawa is able to use VR technology to open a portal to another way of knowing.
Using technology that the Yawanawa feel enables them to share their story and visions, this immersive work takes you on a virtual journey into the spirit world, capturing fluorescent specimens from the forest world to create a vivid, luminous vision.
“Awavena is a true story with all the power of myth. It tells the story of Hushahu, the first woman Shaman of the Yawanawa, and of the radical reconfiguring of gender relations that takes place following her induction, by the tribe’s spiritual leader Tata, into the Yawanawa spiritual traditions.”
Lynette Wallworth
Awavena is a collaboration between an artist and a community, melding technology and transcendent experience so that a vision can be shared, and a story told of a people ascending from the edge of extinction. It is an unmissable experience and a gift from the Yawanawa at a time of peril for their people. They hope our experience of Awavena will shift our consciousness and change the way we perceive the world and the decisions we make.
The work first premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and screened at the World Economic Forum in Davos and the 2018 Venice International Film Festival. It is the second in a series of mixed-reality works by Lynette Wallworth and producer Nicole Newnham, following on from their Emmy Award-winning VR film Collisions, (2016).
Visit awavenavr.com for more insight into this award-winning work.
Presented in association with Perth Festival
Supported by AGWA Principal Partner and Perth Festival Visual Arts Program Partner Wesfarmers Arts
Final Release Tickets
By popular demand, we have released final tickets for Tuesday 18 and 25 February. Book your place to avoid disappointment. Please note that only Awavena Gallery and the AGWA Shop will be open on these days. All other galleries will be closed.
