During Art Basel Miami Beach, 300 Magazine cofounders Julia Sysalova and Ilya Kushnirskiy attended a public talk at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami exploring the relationship between contemporary art, technology, and environmental responsibility. The event was hosted by the artist-founded nonprofit land conservation initiative Art into Acres.
The conversation featured Refik Anadol, one of the most prominent artists working today with artificial intelligence and data-driven media, Chief Nixiwaka, spiritual leader of the Yawanawá people of the Brazilian Amazon, and Alex Gartenfeld, Artistic Director of ICA Miami.
A large part of the talk centered on the ecological responsibility of the art world. Speakers reflected on how artists and cultural institutions can move from symbolic gestures to concrete, long-term efforts to protect natural ecosystems and the cultural traditions connected to them.
Artwork by Refik Anadol at the Miami Sculpture Garden
For Anadol, nature has long been a source of inspiration— he has created projects based on underwater ecosystems, national parks, botanical structures, and climate datasets. His first visit to Amazonia and his encounter with the Yawanawá culture became a turning point that led him to revisit his artistic practice and his ethics in working with data and place.
Refik Anadol’s ongoing collaboration with the Yawanawá people in the Amazon has taken shape in Winds of Yawanawá, a series of 1,000 NFT-based data paintings generated from real-time weather data collected in Yawanawá villages. These datasets are processed through AI systems and combined with traditional Yawanawá visual motifs and cosmological references. The project has been presented internationally, including at Art Basel and the World Economic Forum in Davos, with proceeds supporting the Instituto Nixiwaka, an organization protecting Yawanawá land and cultural heritage.
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