Designboom_ New media artist Refik Anadol collaborates with the Yawanawá community, indigenous to the Brazilian Amazon, on a multilayered digital artwork that responds to real-time data from the rainforest. Commissioned by Impact One, Winds of Yawanawá is composed of a central video artwork and a collection of 1,000 unique and dynamically evolving NFT data paintings. Anadol co-created the generative AI series together with the communities of Aldeia Sagrada and Nova Esperança, immersing viewers in a visual rendition of one of Earth’s most vital ecosystems – the Amazon rainforest – while highlighting the importance of protecting it. Each data painting harnesses weather data from the community’s village, including wind speed, gusts, direction, and temperature, which is then merged with works of young Yawanawá artists, resulting in a mesmerizing play of traditional shapes and colors of data pigmentation.

Refik Anadol, Yawanawá Chiefs Nixiwaka and Isku Kua, along with their family members Ninunihu and Ykashahu Yawanawá, unveiled the project at Scorpios Mykonos earlier in July to kickstart the Encounters In Resonance summer art program. Proceeds from the sale of the NFTs go directly to the Yawanawá community as part of a fundraising initiative to support them in protecting their natural and cultural heritage.

Curated in collaboration with HOFA Gallery (House of Fine Art) and M. Stahl, the In Resonance two-day event at Scorpios brought together Refik Anadol and members of the Yawanawá community to the Greek island of Mykonos. Chiefs Nixiwaka and Isku Kua led a prayer and musical performance of traditional songs together with Nixiwaka’s daughter Ykashahu and Ninunihu, granddaughter of the great medicine man Yawarani,while the video artwork kept playing in a loop, serving as the heart of the event.To accompany and explain this historic initiative, CEO of Impact One Mikolaj Sekutowicz hosted a panel discussion to discuss the significance of the cross-industry collaboration from which the artwork emerged, and how Web3 can be used an additional driver of global stewardship of natural ecosystems.

‘I am a part of the new generation that has witnessed the new technologies arriving within our territories,’ Yawanawá Chief Isku Kua said while pondering the arrival of the new technologies to the Indigenous community. ‘We understood the need to adapt to these new instruments that you bring in order to adapt to this new reality. I don’t need to fight with my bow and arrows anymore. I only need to speak the same language as you. Who would have thought that indigenous people from the middle of the forest living in such a traditional way would today be launching an artwork with this artificial intelligence and all the technology it involves. It doesn’t make me and my people less Yawanawá or less indigenous. When I return back home I will be walking barefoot on the ground. I will continue to play in the river with my children and lighting my fire under the starry sky. But when I want to speak to you or to my brothers, I will take my phone and speak to whoever I want and continue protecting my forests in the same way. But now speaking the same language as you.’

Yawanawá chief Nixiwaka (left) and Refik Anadol (right) at Scorpios

Winds of Yawanawá consists of a central AI data sculpture and collection of 1,000 unique evolving NFT pieces.Each data painting is composed of a video with soundtrack, generated from the Winds of Yawanawá artwork video. Central to the creative process of the pieces are the young Yawanawá sisters Nawashahu and Mukashahu, whose artworks form the foundation and visual inspiration of Winds of Yawanawa, combined with traditional Yawanawá chants. Meanwhile, real-time weather data from the Yawanawá sacred village of Aldeia Sagrada flow into the central artwork and dictate its movement, making it a living and dynamically evolving representation of the community’s identity and its connection to the Amazon.

In support of the Yawanawá community, Refik Anadol and Impact One decided to waive their full share of the revenues from the NFT sales, with all proceeds given to the indigenous-led organization Instituto Nixiwaka. The funds will support their long-term initiatives for the protection of Yawanawá lands and cultural heritage, including a historical convening of indigenous peoples of the Amazon that will be held in the Yawanawá Sacred Village in 2024.