Waste Land Vik Munniz

Waste Land is a documentary about finding beauty in things that people discard. Directed by Lucy Walker, the film follows Brazilian artist Vik Muniz who travels back to his home country from New York City to create artistic photographs shaped by using garbage that depicts the lives of the pickers who live in the largest landfill in the world. Located in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Jardim Gramacho is a landfill that holds 3,000 garbage pickers, also knowns as catadores, who pick out recyclable wastes from the dump. These workers are encountered by Muniz who takes them on his project and create the artistic ideas in his mind. However, what responsibilities does art and the artist have to the community that makes that art possible? The experiences
If the piece of art is about a specific culture or a community, what you see would be your knowledge and understanding of that community. Therefore, the artist should be extremely cautious about what he or she presents in the art being constructed. In Waste Land, Vik puts together pieces of garbage to form beautiful images of the catadores. The final works all have a common theme of poverty and hard work. As an observer of the art, this forms the perception that the catadores are hopeless, useless, and weak people that have limited control over their lives. However, Is this what the catadores want the people to feel about them when they see their images? From what I recall from the movie, the ideas for the images were all from Vik and not the pickers who participated in the project. Vik took specific photographs of the pickers and told them to act out certain poses. The pickers seemed satisfied with the photographs, but it did not have original ideas from the workers themselves, thus the story that we’re being told when we look at the photographs is not being told by them. This creates a disrupted image of the community in Jardim Gramacho. If I haven’t watched the movie, and just saw the work they created, I would have not known their hopes and desire to achieve their dreams like Tiao’s Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho. That is Vik’s responsibility
In the finished work, the images seem normal from far away. but when the viewer comes closer, a transformation happens in which they realize that the entire image was made out of garbage. A transformation also happens to the picker’s themselves after they accomplish putting the images together. This transformation happens in their mind in which the way they see themselves changes. Given the opportunity to work in an art studio after working years in a landfill can be a great deal to accept all at once, especially after seeing the results of what they made. Having your work and picture posted in an art show is a great boost in confidence and determination. Their psychological change would require another transformation in their whole life.. This mental shift or transformation is largely the artist's responsibility but it can be supported in many different ways. For the catadores, the support needed is financially. Tiao, Magna, Suelem, and all the other pickers who participated in the project needed to either go out of Jardim or move to a more promising place. Five out of seven of the pickers who participated in the project bought a house after their work in the studio. Tiao and Zumbi were able to open a library for the pickers and help their association grow. Irma was able to open her own restaurant in small neighbourhood in Rio. Four out of seven of the pickers