Lynette Wallworth is a hugely acclaimed Australian multimedia artist who won an Emmy Award last year for her virtual reality film Collisions.
Focusing on Indigenous elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan and the Martu people in the remote Western Australian Pilbara desert, Collisions is considered a groundbreaking work for VR.
Wallworth’s next VR film, Awavena, is on its way to Carriageworks in Sydney following screenings at the Venice International Film Festival. It will arrive in Carriageworks after its Australian premiere at Create NSW’s 360 Vision VR and AR Industry Event on 16 November 2018.
Made at the invitation of the Brazilian Amazonian Yawanawa people, Awavena tells the story of a woman named Hushahu and the “radical reconfiguring of gender relations that took place following her induction into the Yawanawa spiritual traditions by Tata.”
Tata, as the film’s official synopsis explains, is “the tribe’s 100-year-old shaman who came to believe that the future strength of the Yawanawa people relied on power being shared with women.”
It is a fascinating premise from a director who is considered a pioneering artist in the field of new and emerging technologies.
Lynette Wallworth says: “Awavena is a true story with all the power of myth. Tata, the 100-year old Shaman, had lived through slavery and survived the cultural destitution wrought by missionaries. He foresaw the challenges on the horizon for the diminished population of the Yawanawa and eventually came to believe that their future strength relied on power being shared with women. He broke an eons old cultural taboo and sparked a revolution, one that has resonance for us all.”
Awavena will be presented at Carriageworks from November 17 – December 9, 2018.
Visit the Carriageworks website to arrange a ticket.
