Vik Muniz

The title of the portraits, Pictures of Garbage, does not suggest that Vik Muniz is depicting the subjects of his photographs as trash; however, by creating them out of trash, the title and medium allows society to view the Catadores’ of the Jardim Gramacho economic status and place in the community. The documentary Wasteland is about how Vik Muniz returned to his native home Sao Paolo, Brazil. Muniz goes to the largest trash dump in the South America, located outside the city of Rio de Janerio, where he meets many of the locals that recycle and collect trash there. Vik Muniz came to Rio de Janerio to take the lives of the people he met there and make portraits of them like he did the Sugar Children. The Sugar Children were the children of

The importance of the pickers are overlooked because of their job description. Though these people are of a lower class, they are not what they seem; they are not trash. As common in many countries, in Brazil social status is very important to its people. There is a large disparity in wages distinctions among the social classes. The poor make up a large percentage in Brazil and education is only easily accessible for families with money. Therefore, it is difficult for most people to obtain an education because they cannot afford to attend the required educational institutions. According to NY Times, “Brazil passed a law to eradicate open dumps and integrate the catadores into the recycling industry. Yet the catadores are still an underclass.” Zumbi, a worker at the dump, takes advantage of what little education the dump can bring him. Working there since he was nine, Zumbi collects every book that he finds at the landfill. Out of his shack, he has established a community library in which people can borrow books. Another employee there, Isis Rodrigues Garros told Vik Muniz in the film how she only makes $20 to $25 a

Unfortunately, the catadores’ lives are consumed by ill-fated circumstance and poverty due to the unequal class structures of Brazil. Along with the recreation of Jacques Louise-David’s Death of Marat, Vik Muniz also used his subjects and co-creators to appropriate illustrious paintings such as The Gipsy, The Sower, Atlas, The Women Ironing, Irma the Bearer, and also Madonna and Children. The subjects of these paintings as well as the workers appear to products of hard labor and classism inequalities. Muniz uses the content of his paintings to allow the higher class to view these people in a different perspective. Society will view the portraits and not understand the context or the social disparities of these individuals, but only perceive the photographs as beautiful representations of famous