Located just outside Rio de Janeiro, Jardim Gramacho, Brazil, is the world’s largest garbage landfill. Waste Land is an academy award winning documentary about a modern artist, Vik Muniz, who journeys from his home base in Brooklyn, New York, to his native Brazil, where he visits the landfill. There he photographs four catadores-pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to paint portraits of the catadores using garbage, auction off the portraits, and give the money to the catadores, as his way of giving back to the community. However, his collaboration with these inspiring pickers as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both dignity and despair as the pickers begin to re-imagine their lives. …show more content…
As I stated in the beginning, Muniz took pictures of the catadores and had them sculpt their portraits with the garbage that they have picked. He then travels to London, bringing along one of the catadores, to auction off one of the portraits that was created. Tiao dos Santos, one of the catadores that traveled to London with Muniz, sat amazed and emotional as the portrait of himself, made of garbage, gets auctioned off for $50,000. He cries on Muniz’s shoulders as he expresses how he appreciated what he have done for them. Isis, one of the catadores states: “This work brought me realization.” This experience has not only changed their lives, but Vik Muniz also become changed. It has impacted their creativity, insight, purpose, spirituality, and life in general. The pickers have come up with plans outside of Gramacho. With the money from the auction, they buy a truck, equipment, and build a learning center and a library. “With the help of Tiao, the president of the pickers’ cooperative ACAMJG (the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho), the city will pay out more than 1,700 pickers in a lump sum of about $7,500 each now that the landfill is closed. In addition, ACAMJG has picked up contracts to process recyclables at the World Cup 2014 and secured government contracts to work at new recycling plants opening in the city. In 2010, Brazil enacted its first federal waste management law that will fund recycling plants and legally recognize garbage pickers, including more than 8,000 members of the Movimento Nacional dos Catadores de Materiais Reciclaveis (National Movement of Collectors of Recyclable Materials), where Tiao has become one of the leaders. (pbs.org). These few life changing events are some of the benefits of combining art and social practice. Combining the two engage the world and create social
“Waste Land” and “Emmanuel’s Gift”, After watching these films, I have been thinking about the happiness to be found by work that is honest and valuable. I also thought about how hard some people are prepared to work, and how inspiring it is to see the individuals in these films find ideas to demonstrate the power of art and media to bring curiosity and cultural awareness in the poorest, most underprivileged people. “Waste Land” follows an artist Vik Muniz as he works on his art project in Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho in Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs catadors or garbage pickers as they pick recyclable materials from the garbage. And upon meeting the characters at the landfill, Vik decides to turn the project into collaboration with the catadors. In the end, this collaboration reveals both dignity and despair in the lives of the catadors. “Emmanuel’s Gift”, is about Emmanuel Ofosu, a man born in Ghana with a deformed right leg, he bikes around the country to help raise awareness and build relationships in a culture that ridicules those with disabilities.
Throughout one’s life, he or she will encounter an opportunity that will likely impact his or her perspective on a given situation. In Waste Land, Vik Muniz embraced the opportunity to travel to Jardim Gramacho in Brazil in hopes of making a difference with the pickers by incorporating the pickers as assistants for the art projects. While at the landfill in Rio de Janeiro, he experiences the life of the pickers which helps him to create the art that will transform the lives of the workers; these experiences allow Muniz to develop as a person (Walker). Vik Muniz’s perspective regarding the landfill and the pickers evolved from expressing pity to embracing the pickers as a group of friends.
The way the picture is painting, the viewer can tell that the artist is using a social context to represent the picker’s environment. The artist does a great job of presenting the life of picker. According to the Mark Tadajewski and Kathy Hamilton, the artist able to interprets the life of the picker very effectively on his painting, because he had an impoverished childhood himself so he understands the circumstances of the pickers (34). It seems Vik not only have a good relationship with the pickers, but also put a lot of effort working with this kind of environment. To me it seems like he puts commitment to indicate the Brazilian garbage pickers’ lives through his
From above, the world of the Jardim Gramacho landfill appears to be nothing more than garbage with the catadores (pickers)—as small and as insignificant as ants—sorting through the rubbish. The workers collect and sell recyclable items in hazardous conditions, earning around USD $20 per day. Yet in Lucy Walker’s “Waste Land,” the garbage of Rio de Janeiro is transformed into fine art as Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz, seeks to humanize the marginalized catadores of Brazilian society. The film focuses on the people Muniz encounters and ultimately photographs for his collection of portraits, entitled “Pictures of Garbage.” The documentary follows the life of the catadores as they collaborate with Muniz on stunning pieces of modern art made from
According to Sze, “Harvey uses garbage as a metaphor for the postmodern condition and as a material object (the monumental waste disposal problem) to represent changing forms of capitalism.” (Sze, 2007, p. 117) What she means by this is that some individuals linked the term ‘garbage’ as a symbolic ideology related to how our capitalist culture has grown accustomed to throwing away not only our garbage and the things we no longer need or use, but also the values, lifestyles, and personal attachments that we have made in our lives. In addition, the concept of garbage is also related to the race and class issue. That is, the author states that some neighborhoods are more inclined to have greater amounts of trash due to the individuals (or groups of individuals) that live therein. Some base the issue of garbage on race, ethnicity and socioeconomic
He was able to remove the individuals who lived in the landfill out of their daily environments, which for them I feel was much needed. He helped the individuals to be able to escape their own realities, even if it was only for a few hours in the art studio. The artist also helped to give purpose and meaning to the individuals through letting them work and be closely involved with him on the art projects. Not that the individuals didn't already have purpose or meaning, but the artist was able to give them an even greater sense of each. Speaking of art' the fact that the artist wants to "paint" the catadores with the trash they spend their days dealing with and he chooses to incorporate several of the catadores and their stories into his art, shows what an impact these people had on him. At last, dynamic, complex, and substantially human representations rise, uncovering both nobility and hopelessness as the catadores start to reconsider their
Velazquez focuses on the unfair treatment of the poor community by large corporations. Because of this focus, she ignores the fact that in this distribution of waste-transfer stations, it can bring enormous economic values for this country’s development. Velazquez conveys that large corporations dump lots of waste and she has “personally never see a waste-transfer station on the upper East Side of Manhattan, or in the Hamptons” while almost forty percent of New York City’s waste-transfer stations are in her district (766). As a representative of her district, it is reasonable for Velazquez to be outraged by the waste-transfer stations’ distribution from her district’s residents’ points of view.
Outer islands have dumpsters that are used for trash generated by workers. Most outer island work is occasional and involves few individuals; therefore waste generation is minimal. Dumpsters from Illeginni, Legan and Carlos are replaced at least quarterly, and more frequently if barge transportation is available. Wastes are shipped to the Kwajalein Solid Waste Management Yard for segregation, incineration, and/or landfilling as needed. Dumpsters from Gagan are transported to Roi-Namur for disposal. When special projects take place on these or other outer islands, additional dumpsters and waste receptacles are delivered and used as needed. Wastes from construction projects are removed from the islands at the conclusion of the projects or during the project as needed. No wastes are disposed on these islands with the exception of green wastes which are left to decompose naturally.
We also witnessed a recycling area full of e-waste and various recycled materials. This waste was piled around homes; even children played around it. As we know this waste likely contained harsh metals and chemicals. It is possible that the inhabitants of this town aren’t aware of these dangers, yet they live among this waste that is dumped there from various companies. These living conditions are inhumane and hazardous to the health of these people.
Ever found something in the trash and taken it home? While many partake in dumpster diving leisurely, there are a special few who get everything they need from garbage: clothes, electronics, and even food. "Cultivate poverty... like a garden herb. Don't trouble yourself to get new things whether clothes or friends," (Thoreau, Generation 25). This brilliant quote relates very closely to the freeganism movement which fights wastefulness in our consumerist society.
A) Lars Eighner, in “On Dumpster Diving”, portrays the waste that is accumulated due to modern consumerism and materialism. He also demonstrates the issue of the wage gap. Consumers of the modern age spend too much and therefore waste too much. In the essay, Eighner describes life as an scavenger and demonstrates how people are able to live by the minimal resources. “Scavengers” are able to survive on the waste of the consumer. Eighner presents this scenario as a contrast to the life of a modern consumer, in order to portray it’s unnecessary wastefulness. Mainly, food seems to be taken lightly by society, as Eighner as a scavenger finds “a half jar of peanut butter”,
When you hear about Brazil, what comes to your mind first? The Amazon rainforest? The Christ Redeemer statue? Soccer? Carnival? What about the 16 million Brazilians living in poverty? In Gordon Parks’ “Flavio’s Home”, the Life magazine article centers around the poverty-stricken da Silva family who reside in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy, Flavio, and his misadventures as he and his family face poverty. Parks describes poverty as “savage”, it “claims victims”, and it “spreads like a cancer”. Notice what “savage”, “victims”, and “cancer” all have in common? Among these words, they arouse a feeling of pity or sadness within the reader. These words drive the reader to think about possible ways to help alleviate poverty -- this being Parks’ purpose for telling Flavio’s story. Another way Parks brought pathos into his essay is by describing the living conditions of the slums by using personification
Humankind produces and consumes with little regard for waste. Susan Strasser’s Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash focuses on consumption’s byproduct; trash and what humankind has done to dispose of their waste over the past decades. Strasser catalogues an often deemed unsophisticated part of our modern society as being “central to our lives yet generally silenced or ignore” (p.36), throughout her book elucidating on the premise that one’s own view and opinion of what is deemed as trash varies greatly from person to person. Strasser explicates to the reader the rise of mass markets across the world and the impacts that production and consumption have on the creation of trash. Strasser begins to follow the story of trash in the pre-colonial
The United States produces “about 8.25 billion tons of solid wastes each year” (Russell 1). People do not realize the impact they have on our planet and environment. When people throw anything in the trashcan, they are contributing to the destruction of our planet. The number landfills in the United States are decreasing, but the amount and volume of waste being thrown into the new landfills is increasing (Russell 4). Because of this escalating amount of garbage, Methane which contributes to global warming is an outcome of these landfills (Russell 7). As a result, our planet is suffering because of this epidemic. The garbage being put in the landfills could be recycled, but not enough businesses, ...
Wastes are the products of our consumptions in our daily life routines such as lunch, work, school and other things we do. Little things such as throwing out a piece of paper, we are producing waste by the seconds. After we consume a product we usually throw out what’s left that can’t be consumed any further. Results in producing waste, substance that are born after it’s been use or consume by us. At the end of each day we throw out a bag full of garbage, all of the materials in that bag (paper towels, cans, leftover foods and many other material’s) all of these are waste. Hospitals produce medical waste such as use needles for treating patients. Corporations produce papers, plastics, tires, steels, cans and many other type of solid waste which contribute to the pollutions that cause health risk and other environmental issues.