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GAWI

Close your eyes and fall into an intimate dream of landscape and connectedness. An ancestral Rarámuri poem enlightens your journey, as you discover a way of life for healing Mother Earth and yourself. GAWI is an immersive virtual reality experience co-created with the Rarámuri community in northern Mexico. GAWI - meaning "Mother Earth" - offers an intimate experience of how a Rarámuri state of mind and soul can feel. The experience follows a dreamlike narrative that unfolds to the rhythm of a poem celebrating indigenous ecological wisdom to heal the Earth and oneself. What will you do when you awake?

  • Isabel Monarca
    Director
  • Lorenzo Pajarito
    Director
  • Myriam Hernández
    Director
  • Isabel Monarca
    Writer
  • Lorenzo Pajarito
    Writer
  • Myriam Hernández
    Producer
  • Dane Christensen
    Producer
  • Karen Bellato
    Producer
  • Huitosachi Community
    Key Cast
  • Bacajípare Community
    Key Cast
  • Mariana Gongora
    Key Collaborators
  • Laura Barragán
    Key Collaborators
  • Ana Abellán
    Key Collaborators
  • Ruben Salinas
    Key Collaborators
  • Mauricio Miramontes
    Key Collaborators
  • Project Type:
    Virtual Reality, Installation, 360 Video, Augmented Reality
  • Runtime:
    10 minutes 38 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 8, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    89,608 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Mexico
  • Language:
    Other
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Atlantic Institute Rhodes Trust XR Lab
    Oxford
    United Kingdom
    July 11, 2023
    Private exhibition
Director Biography - Isabel Monarca, Lorenzo Pajarito, Myriam Hernández

Lorenzo Moreno Pajarito is a traditional authority from the Sierra Tarahumara region in Chihuahua, Mexico. He is an advocate for the culture and traditions of the Rarámuri communities. As a community leader, he has promoted local and international collective actions in defense of his territory. Lorenzo is a highly regarded representative of his community Bacajípare and is very generous and patient with those who do not know the Rarámuri culture.

Isabel Monarca Cruz is a Rarámuri woman who has dedicated her life to working for the well-being of her community. Isabel is a representative and spokesperson for her community, she works especially for the recovery of her ancestral territory. She led the international process for the restitution of their territory. Today she is a proud governor of her community Huetosachi and a craftswoman. Isabel loves to walk in the forest and see other places.

Myriam Hernández is a Mexican impact producer focused on virtual reality projects for equity. Her main interest is in building XR projects emerging from the intersection of ethics, decolonizing narratives, and storytelling for social change. Her first virtual reality production was "Loxa" (2018), a film about the life of an indigenous girl from Southern Mexico. Loxa was selected for the Oregon Film Festival and was part of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Conference in Miami, Florida (2020). In 2021 Myriam became a Fellow of the Atlantic Institute expanding her work on participation, voice, and narratives from the global south at a global scale.

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Director Statement

The motivation to produce Gawi comes from an urgent need to acknowledge and connect with ancestral ways of taking care of Earth. It seeks to offer an intimate experience of how a Rarámuri state of mind and soul can feel like. Recognizing and celebrating the resistance that indigenous people carry out is important not just for rethinking human-Nature connection, but also as a decolonization step towards climate and social justice.

The Rarámuri communities from Mexico have decided to tap into this new media production out of the frustration of not being heard and visible. They have consistently tried to get their message across different channels: institutions, international law processes, rituals, and protests, and yet they continue to be threatened to live in peace on their ancestral territory and see the new generations enjoy their traditions and culture.

Gawi's message is closely linked to an environmental call to action. However, it is also a film about ethics and respect. This film initially emerged from a social science research project on the ethics of immersive storytelling and how new media -- like Virtual Reality -- can (or not) enable transformative social change. This film is an empirical exploration of how we can build digital and ethical realities for global audiences.

As an activist and a social campaigner, I have been critical of how the stories of change are often mediated and profited by north-based producers and investors. The hope for participatory and ethical formulas to tell stories in Virtual Reality led me to find endorsement and support from the Atlantic Fellowship for Social and Economic Equity. Through this experience, the team and I worked closely with the communities to redefine the rules of the film game. Self-representation has been at the core of GAWI, and the relevance of producing this kind of project is critical to ignite conversations on how the new media can engage in de-colonizing creative processes.

The participatory aspect of Gawi is what makes this VR film unique. Every decision was consulted and imagined collectively. Taking this approach meant higher production and investment risks, but we firmly believe that the narratives of climate action need to allow space for recognition of the voices of those who are, every day, guarding Mother Earth.