Wasteland Review
Before
we started watching this movie, Wasteland,
I didn’t know exactly what to expect. Vik Muniz sounded like an interesting man
and his idea of using the “catadores” to make art with him was very different. After
he traveled to Rio de Janiero and started to meet the ‘pickers’ I became
intrigued to see what kind of art he would be able to create with such a mess
of garbage. By the end of the movie I was very moved and loved watching the
impact that this artist made on those people.
I
really liked the vision Vik Muniz had of wanting to change the lives of a group
of people. He had this dream and set out to fulfill it as soon as he found out
how it would be possible to do so. Right from the beginning when he started
meeting different people at Jardim Gramacho you could see the excitement in the
faces of the various individuals he spoke to and filmed. They all had a
different background and story to tell that led to the reason why they were
working at a garbage dump. I loved how he let them all help work on each
project because they got a different sense of themselves in doing so. When they
got to see themselves in the art they had posed for and created, many of them
got emotional. This part of the movie was very inspirational because you could
see in their reactions the impact that Vik had made on them. I also loved the
part when he told the one man that he could keep all of the money they got for
his photograph at the auction they went to. This had a huge impact on his
family and his life at that time and was so selfless of Vik to do.
It
was incredible to see Vik go through the different stages of creating his art.
First he had to talk to and choose the people that he wanted to photograph.
Once he decided, he then had to set them up and photograph them in a way that
showed who they were. It was interesting that he then displayed his photographs
on the floor in a studio and everyone placed the garbage in the correct places
to create his image. I originally thought that he was going to print a copy of
the photograph and glue the garbage on top of it. I also thought that the image
was going to be much, much smaller than it was! I loved how he had all of the
‘pickers’ that he photographed helping him create the art. You could tell how
happy they were to have a break from picking garbage day after day. It was
amazing to see the finished products because it didn’t even look like it was
garbage. The way that the different materials were layered, stacked, and laid
out created a simply beautiful picture that resembled nothing of garbage at
all. This was a totally new way for me to look at art since previously I used
to associate art with paintings, drawings, and photographs mostly. Using
garbage for art really makes Vik Muniz stand out among other artists around the
world and I can see how his photographs were sold for so much money at the
auction.
Overall,
this movie Wasteland was a great
inspiration for artists and people who just enjoy looking at art. Vik Muniz has
a very unique technique for creating art that makes him stand out among other
artists. It was interesting to watch and learn about the process of how he
creates his art with garbage. The impact he had on the garbage pickers was
tremendous and very inspirational.
