Waste Land is a documentary by Lucy Walker about artist Vik Muniz’s “Pictures of Garbage” series, a project done with the help of the pickers at Jardim Gramacho, the largest dump/landfill in Latin America, located outside Rio de Janeiro.
Vik is Brazilian, and though his home and studio are now in NY (Brooklyn), he wanted to “give something back” to Brasil. He had done a series years ago called “Sugar Children” in which he made portraits of the children of sugar plantation workers on the island of St. Kitts, and he says in the film that he considers that series one of his best — I agree.
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Vik’s typical process is to take photographs of something, or use a work of art, and then reproduce it using some ephemeral material — sugar, chocolate, Pantone chips, spaghetti — and in this recent series, garbage.
The Gramacho pickers live by the dump, and every day they converge when the trucks arrive, attacking the mountains of refuse, from every class of Carioca. Various people specialize in certain kinds of recyclable materials — plastic bottles, PVC, and almost anything that can be recycled. These are “harvested” and then assembled in containers for another set of trucks to pay for and pick up and take to the recycling center. Here’s Vik at the dump with the pickers in the background.
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To make a long story a little shorter, Vik photographed some of the pickers and then asked them to come to his studio in Rio where they help him assemble their own portraits — made from materials they’ve collected — as Vik directs from above.
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These pieces are then photographed and the original assemblage is destroyed. The resulting giant photographic prints will, in this case, be auctioned, and the proceeds will go to help the community of pickers.
If you look closely you can see the tires, shoes, bottle caps and plastic bottles that make up the shading and lines of the image.
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All good so far — but there was an interesting moment that I can’t forget. Vik and Janaina, his soon to be ex, are discussing, in a very emotional way, a dilemma they face. After working in Vik’s studio making art for a couple of weeks, the pickers don’t want to go back to the dump. “How do you send them back to the farm after they’ve seen Paris?,” as the old song goes.
It’s even more complicated than that. As we witness in the film, the pickers are more or less happy with their lives in the dump. Sure, they want better, and one of them has formed a cooperative to help organize and improve their situation — but we mostly see them laughing, sharing food, helping each other and getting along. We don’t see dead shells of humanity or zombie drones… we see lively, wonderful human beings.
But now they’ve tasted the outside world — suddenly, contemplating the return to their old lives, they’re unhappy. Like the Biblical Fall, a vast sadness has been introduced into the world. A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.
Previously in the doc, Vik has told his own story — how as a lower middle class Brazilian growing up in a situation where to aspire to become an artist was ridiculed, despite the ridiculous odds, he followed his inspiration. He feels that as it was with him, the seed of dissatisfaction will be a prod that will force the pickers to find a way out of their situation. Discontent breeds ambition and action, he maintains.
Others in that discussion are not so sure. Some see the unhappiness of the pickers (who, inevitably, will return to their work) and feel guilty at being involved in their new despondency. After all, it’s not a given that they will be able to better their circumstances — the world is notoriously cruel and unfair. That newfound ambition could drive some to become prostitutes, criminals or drug dealers, it is argued — anything for a quick buck.
This moment in the film opened up a world of questions for me. Charity: does a well meant gift sometimes sow devastation? A one time gift would often seem to have that effect. The tales of the tragedies of lottery and sweepstakes winners are legendary — fights over the money, jealousy, bad investments and conspicuously luxurious purchases. No lasting happiness.
But as has tediously often been said: “Give a man a fish and you feed him once, teach him how to fish and you feed him and his family for a lifetime.” A school and its teachers, employment, and empowerment, are all more important than the immediate gratification that might be asked for, begged for, or might be tempting to give. Bags of grain to Africa might alleviate a famine — a little bit — but that generosity won’t prevent a tragedy from occurring the following year. Who could be so cold-hearted to deny the bags of grain or infant formula? — but without planning, the relief is short lived. Vik’s solution to this dilemma seemed to achieve a balance.
In the same way, simply giving anyone a taste of a more luxurious (I won’t say better) life, or more material goods has the immediate result of increasing envy, jealousy, dissatisfaction and anger. In Vik’s case, though, I don’t think it was exposure to a higher class, or to stuff, but exposure to art that opened up a new world for him as a young man. It wasn’t luxury he was lusting for, but a creative outlet.
[Spoiler alert] But, at least in the film, a series of cards at the end tell us that most of the pickers we followed, and that Vik photographed, have indeed changed their lives — and we are led to believe most of those changes are for the better. The money he raised from the sale of the photos — a lot of money — went to the individuals, but also to their advocacy organization, a library and to buy them their own truck. So while they had the opportunity, if they wanted, to squander their own personal funds, a good portion of the proceeds was also designed to have a lasting effect on the whole community. The transformative power of art — in more ways than one.
