Garbage as art?
In the right hands, like those of Vik Muniz, yes, and he then proves it in "Waste Land," a tale of the people who survive, and often thrive, living at the world's largest garbage dump and spending their working hours picking through tons of thrown-away stuff. They are looking for recyclable material that they sell to folks who clean it and transform it into all sorts of products.
Vik Muniz, an artist who was born in Brazil but now lives in Brooklyn, is a man who creates art out of many different raw materials, including peanut butter and jelly. Where other people saw refuse, he saw creative possibilities. He spent time at what is sardonically called Jardim Gramacho, or Gramacho Gardens, on the outskirts of Rio de Janiero, getting to know the pickers and taking photographs of them. He enlarged the photos to giant size, spread them on a warehouse floor, then instructed some of the pickers to place the trash in and around the portraits. Then he shot them again, from a high scaffold, to create the final image. They're fascinating, have been in museum shows and at auctions all over the world, and completely stunned the subjects. At an exhibit in Rio, one old woman admitted she never even had been in a museum, and was thrilled that a recognizable picture of her was hanging on a wall in one.
Muniz got into the lives of his subjects, too. Tiao, an activist, was a leader of an informal government at the dump; aging Walter was a philosopher; Suelen, 18, had been living there since she was 11, and proud of the fact that she was neither a drug dealer nor a prostitute, but was getting by on the daily $20-25 (American) she was earning at the dump. There were cooks who provided meals for the workers and, for many, a real society.
"Wasteland" is a gripping film, beautifully directed by Lucy Walker and photographed by Dudu Miranda. Some of these people easily prove that they are not defined by their work, income or social status, and it's exciting to see it.
"Waste Land" opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
—Joe