One man’s garbage is another man’s art. That’s the les son in Lucy Walker’s fascinating documentary “Waste Land,” a portrait of Vik Muniz, a successful Brazilian-born, Brooklyn-based artist.
Muniz’s work centers around Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest garbage dump, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
It is there that he photographs the catadores, people who go through the trash looking for recyclables to sell. “It’s better than turning tricks,” one woman explains.
Muniz turns his photos into giant art pieces that have been shown at museums in Rio and New York.
At a London auction, one mosaic fetched $50,000, which Muniz donated to the trash pickers. He has helped many of the catadores turn around their lives. Some get jobs, others go back to school. Walker’s breezy film turns Muniz into a folk hero. And who am I to argue?