Event

WASTE LAND

Monday, February 28 at 7:30pm
Members $9 / Public $13 Includes Reception / No Refunds

Guest Speaker: Art Historian
Franklin Hill Perrell

For three years, Lucy Walker's cameras followed renowned Brooklyn based artist Vik Muniz
when he returned to his native Brazil to create portraits of "catadores," pickers of recyclable
materials in Rio de Janeiro's largest garbage land fill. Little did he imagine that his project would
transform his life and the lives of several "catadores." Muniz melds art with social projects,
seeking, in his own words, to change the lives of a group of people with the material they use every
day. In an early project he created portraits of St. Kitts' sugar cane workers using poured granulated
sugar on photographs. In Rio, Muniz took photos of several pickers and used them to draw
huge portraits decorated with garbage. He then photographed the found object montage. Muniz's subjects included a cross section
of the poor: an elderly worker-philosopher who states: "It's not bad to be poor. It's bad to be rich with your morals a dirty shame;" two
stunning young women doing honest work amidst tons of garbage to avoid prostitution; a young man who reads discarded works by
Machiavelli, Marat and Nietzsche and organizes workers into a labor association. As his project progresses, Muniz fears he will
"mess up the minds" of the workers. One of the many fascinations of watching Wasteland is observing how the "catadores" change
as their dazzling portraits progress. In the end, no one remains untouched. Marty Haas USA, 2010, 98 min.