The Gypsy Magna-Pictures of Garbage.

This piece by Vik Muniz is very inspiring to me because there is a lot of significance behind the piece - and the piece itself tells a story. For background behind this piece, the artist traveled to his homeland in Brazil in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro where he meets and works with pickers of recyclable materials (the outskirts are a big "garbage" dump where these individuals live and work). When working with these individuals, Muniz photographed each individual and re-created the portraits through using dirt and trash from the waste land. He then re-photographed the final works. Through these works, the workers of Brazil were vulnerable to their despair and they began to re-imagine their lives. This piece and series is very inspirational and influential to me, because the artist went back to where he came from to not only rediscover his roots, but put himself in the shoes of others and understand their lives and how THEY live. I also admire this piece a lot because it incorporates actual elements that are from the waste land, which is representational of the subjects, where they come from, and how they live. This is the same with the dirt, and how dirt was taken from the actual waste land and created to re-create the portraits (used for the shading). This is so significant, because the elements from the waste land make up every aspect of the portrait. This represents that the waste land consumes the lives of these individuals. This is significant to the art world and humanity, because we are being exposed to lives that we have not yet (at that time) been exposed to or discovered. The pieces make us think a bit about the world as a whole, the idea of the mass amounts of trash, as well as how these individuals live their lives. I really love this work, and I think the concept behind the series as a whole is very powerful.

Image derived from: Muniz, Vik. The Gypsy Magna-Pictures of Garbage. 2010. Photograph. Vik Muniz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Web. 4 Nov 2013. <http://www.wastelandmovie.com/gallery.html>.