Awavena

2018

Mixed reality
A dark image of a young woman in ceremonial blue make up, particularly around the eyes, looking to the left, reminiscent of an amazonian shaman

Awavena was made by Emmy and AACTA award-winning artist and director Lynette Wallworth, and screened to international acclaim at the 2018 Venice International Film Festival. It had its Melbourne debut at ACMI in 2019. The second in a series of VR works by Lynette Wallworth and producer Nicole Newnham (Collisions was the first and exhibited at ACMI in 2016), Awavena is a stunning tale of metamorphosis in the Brazilian Amazon.
For the Amazonian Yawanawa, “medicine” has the power to take you inside a vision to a place you have never been. By collaborating with artist Lynette Wallworth, Hushuhu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawa is able to use VR like medicine to open a portal to another way of knowing. Awavena is a collaboration between a community and an artist, 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.
Wallworth was invited by the Yawanawa to create this stunning VR experience using cutting edge technology to mirror their vision states. Awavena was an unmissable experience and a gift from the Yawanawa that they hoped would shift our consciousness and change the way we perceived the world and the decisions we make.

How are these works connected?

Explore this constellation

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

Collection

Not in ACMI's collection

Credits

artist

Lynette Wallworth

Production dates
2018

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

LN176973

Measurements

1. Large Pelican Case H81cm x W51cm x D31cm 2. Small Pelican Case H63cm x W50cm x D30cm 3. Suitcase H75cm x W50cm x D30cm 4. Circular Mirror 80cm diameter x D10cm 5. 2 x large rugs rolled 15cm diameter x L200cm 6. 3 x small mats rolled 10cm diameter x L150cm 7. 2 x hammock chairs in one cardboard box H82cm x W52cm x D32cm

Object Types

Virtual Reality Work

Materials

AV equipment, installation materials, furnishings, rugs.

Collected

113 times

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/118185--awavena/ |title=Awavena |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=25 December 2024 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}