Hushuhu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawa, uses 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.

Using a technology that the Yawanawa feel enables them to share their story and visions. This immersive work presents fluorescent and bioluminescent specimens in previously unseen colors from the forest world, to create a vivid, luminous vision.

Awavena is made at the invitation of, and in intimate collaboration with, the Yawanawa people during a time of both peril and potential for people, their forest, and the connected ecosystems that drive the planet. The film aims not to provoke empathy for the Yawanawa people but is rather a gift from them, to those who will virtually visit their forest and receive this transmission — a gift that can shift our consciousness, changing the way we perceive the world and the decisions we make.