Art Basel Miami Beach | Yawanawá & Refik Anadol: Miami Beach Convention Center

02 - 06 December

“For us, the forest is not a resource, it is a living being that we are a part of. Through this work with Refik and Efsun, our art and our spirituality have found new ways to travel, carrying the voice of our ancestors into new worlds.” - Chief Biraci Brasil Nixiwaka Yawanawa
At Zero 10, Art Basel's initiative for art of the digital era, Winds of Yawanawa, the 2023 collaboration between the Yawanawa and Refik Anadol, is presented through its original source imagery and digital artworks. Fine-art prints of the original drawings by Yawanawa artists Nawashahu and Mukashahu are shown alongside all 1,000 works from the digital collection and three new canvases by the two artists, commissioned by Scorpios, marking the project's latest chapter.

Presented by Scorpios in collaboration with HOFA Gallery and Instituto Nixiwaka at Art Basel Miami Beach. VIP Preview: 2–3 December 2026; Public Days: 4–6 December 2026.

ART BASEL PRINT RELEASE
© Video courtesy of Thomas Zikos represented by Mia Dorier for Scorpios
Indigenous artists from the Brazilian Amazon, Nawashahu Yawanawa and Mukashahu Yawanawa, together with media artist Refik Anadol, will show The Forest Remembers: Winds of Yawanawa at Zero 10, Art Basel Miami Beach 2026, booth Z6. The installation revisits the artistic foundations of Winds of Yawanawa, the 2023 collaboration developed with Instituto Nixiwaka, bringing fine-art prints of the original drawings that informed the project into dialogue with its digital collection and with three newly commissioned canvases by Nawashahu and Mukashahu.

Presented by Scorpios in collaboration with HOFA Gallery and Instituto Nixiwaka, with intercultural coordination by KANAH, The Forest Remembers: Winds of Yawanawa forms part of Generation, the 2026 Miami Beach edition of Zero 10, curated by Karen Archey with Eli Scheinman. VIP Preview Days take place on 2–3 December 2026, followed by public days from 4–6 December 2026.
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Since its launch at Scorpios Mykonos in 2023, audiences have encountered Winds of Yawanawa principally through its digital works. Miami shifts the perspective, making visible the physical artistic practices at the foundation of the collaboration, presenting the source drawings as a new print release, alongside digital works and new paintings inspired by the original imagery, offering a full account of the collaboration's artistic development.

At the heart of the presentation is Breathing Forest, a new limited collector print release comprising 25 numbered sets, each containing high-resolution reproductions of the original drawings by Nawashahu and Mukashahu Yawanawa that served as source material for Refik Anadol Studio's AI model. These works are presented alongside three new canvases by Nawashahu and Mukashahu Yawanawa, commissioned by Scorpios and inspired by the original drawings. Together, they reveal the relationship between the artists' physical practice and the computational works developed from their imagery.
“Each stroke carries the beauty of nature, the strength of ancestry and the magic of a spiritual world.” – Nawashahu Yawanawa
REFIK ANADOL

Refik Anadol is an award-winning media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence and in digital art collectibles. Refik “paints” with data to create mesmerizing, large-scale digital artworks that address what it means to be a human in the age of AI, with his work occupying the intersection of art, science, and technology.

Across his 3D data sculptures and paintings, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations, the artist takes what was once invisible to the human eye, and renders it visible. Whether that consists of buildings coming to life and disappearing into infinity, or breathtaking aesthetics that take shape from large swaths of data — Refik’s immersive environments offer a new perspective on the world, with a distinct aesthetic technique emerging out of machine intelligence.

Data emerges as a persistent theme across Refik’s work. He has trained a machine model to go through MoMA’s 200 year art collection and reimagine the history of modern art. He created a “data sculpture” of an alternative reality of nature, using 200 million online photos of Earth for the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. Refik also used 70 terabytes of MRI brain scans to create an immersive installation for the Venice Architecture Biennale inspired by the human mind, and for an artwork at Kraftwerk Berlin, visitors provided real time data for AI generation - visible in the form of a hallucinogenic LED screen painting.

The Turkish-born, LA-based artist’s work has been shown across the world at public landmarks, major art museums and festivals. “What are the challenges and possibilities that computing has imposed on humanity?” Refik’s work asks. He examines how our ideas of time and space are changing, as machines increasingly dominate our lives.
Nawashahu and Mukashahu Yawanawa

Winds of Yawanawa was developed from drawings by Nawashahu and Mukashahu Yawanawa, combined with environmental data recorded at Aldeia Sagrada, the community’s sacred village, through Refik Anadol Studio’s AI-based process. Since its launch at Scorpios Mykonos in 2023, audiences have encountered the collaboration principally through its digital works. Miami brings the source drawings into view through a new print release, alongside digital works and new paintings inspired by the original imagery, offering a full account of the collaboration’s artistic development.

The installation includes a new collector print release, titled Breathing Forest, comprising twenty-five high-resolution reproductions of the original Yawanawa drawings used as source material for Refik Anadol Studio’s AI model. These works are presented alongside three new canvases by Nawashahu and Mukashahu Yawanawa, commissioned by Scorpios and inspired by the original drawings. Together, they reveal the relationship between the artists’ physical practice and the computational works developed from their imagery.

A monumental display of twelve screens presents the digital works from the 1,000-piece Winds of Yawanawa digital art collection. Alongside the digital display, prints derived from the original drawings and three newly commissioned canvases allow visitors to encounter the Yawanawa artists’ work both independently and in relation to the digital collaboration.
A monumental installation of twelve screens presents the digital works from the 1,000-piece Winds of Yawanawa collection. Alongside the digital display, the Breathing Forest prints and three newly commissioned canvases by Nawashahu and Mukashahu Yawanawa allow visitors to move between distinct moments in the artists’ practices, from the works that contributed to the visual foundations of Winds of Yawanawa to the new artistic directions they are developing today.

Chief Biraci Brasil Nixiwaka Yawanawa, President of Instituto Nixiwaka, says: "For us, the forest is not a resource, it is a living being that we are a part of. Through this work with Refik and Efsun, our art and our spirituality have found new ways to travel, carrying the voice of our ancestors into new worlds."

The Yawanawa people’s recent history is marked not only by the defence and legal recognition of their territory, but by a sustained movement to strengthen the transmission of Yawanawa language, songs, ceremonies, knowledge and artistic practices across generations, while creating new spaces for Yawanawa voices to move through the contemporary world.

Women hold a central place in this creative continuity. At the 2023 launch of Winds of Yawanawa, Chief Biraci Brasil Nixiwaka Yawanawa spoke of the paintings, like Yawanawa songs, as carrying the creative force of the community’s women.

Nawashahu Yawanawa, who created the original works with her sister Mukashahu, says: "In the paintings, every stroke carries the strength of our ancestry, the beauty of nature and the magic of our spiritual world."

During Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç’s time at Aldeia Sagrada, in the Yawanawa territory, one of the questions at the heart of the exchange was how the Yawanawa wished to represent themselves. Nawashahu and Mukashahu responded through painting. Their works became part of the visual foundation from which Refik Anadol Studio developed its AI-based process, bringing the artists’ imagery into relationship with environmental data recorded in the territory.

Refik Anadol says: "People think AI can take over the world and create problems. But AI can also be used to connect cultures and create visibility."

Readings from a weather station at Aldeia Sagrada shape the movement of the resulting digital works, while Yawanawa song forms part of their soundscape. The project brings together distinct forms of knowledge and expression: painting, digital art, environmental observation, music and the living cultural knowledge of the Yawanawa.

Winds of Yawanawa launched Scorpios’ Encounters art and culture programme at Scorpios Mykonos in 2023, curated with HOFA Gallery. Since its launch, proceeds from the project have supported Yawanawa-led initiatives through Instituto Nixiwaka across the territory, including cultural preservation and community infrastructure projects in several villages. In this way, the collaboration has extended beyond the artworks themselves, contributing to priorities defined by the Yawanawa for their communities and future generations in the Brazilian Amazon.

Scorpios Co-Founder Thomas Heyne says: "Scorpios has always been about creating places where art, music, culture and community meet. Winds of Yawanawá began at our home in Mykonos in 2023, and seeing it take new form at Art Basel Miami Beach, through prints of the artists' original drawings and three new canvases, feels like a full-circle moment."
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