Vik Muniz's Garbage Portraits and Social Project Documented in Lucy Walker's Film Waste Land

Lucy Walker's documentary Waste Land follows artist Vik Muniz creating his 'Pictures of Garbage' series with catadores (garbage pickers) from the Jardim Gramacho landfill in Brazil. Muniz employed these workers to construct large portraits of themselves using refuse collected from the site. The film screened in New York at the Angelika Film Center last fall and will be available on video in spring 2011, with PBS broadcast scheduled for April 2011. Muniz, known for recreating art historical images with unconventional materials like dirt and chocolate syrup, aimed to transform lives through art while returning proceeds from artwork sales to the workers' cooperative. One portrait sold at Phillips auction house in London for $64,097, funding the pickers' co-op founded by union leader Tiaõ. The documentary captures the extreme conditions at Jardim Gramacho, where 7,000 tons of garbage arrive daily from Rio de Janeiro and surrounding areas, workers face injuries and health hazards, and some have worked there since childhood. Several catadores found work outside the landfill after the project, with proceeds funding a new truck, computers, and business training. The film raises questions about the project's impact as workers faced emotional distress returning to the landfill after their temporary studio employment ended. Available March 29, 2011 from iTunes, amazon.com, and newvideo.com.