Waste Land (2010)

    

The Outcome of Art

     Watched the Waste Land (2010) documentary in my Digital Photography class today. It was uplifting to hear people who are being judged for working at a honest, hardworking job feel better about themselves because they are creating artwork that will help bring back recognition and beneficial resources for their community. The artwork provided a voice for the people of Jardim Gramacho to declare to the rest of Brazil that they are important and have value. Just because they work with trash and live in deplorable conditions doesn't mean that their sense of morality is like trash.  

Poverty and Prejudice

       These people are brave to continue to work in looked down conditions and still be relatively proud of their job. I remember one woman who said because of unfortunate circumstances she had to take up the job as a trash picker in Brazil. Then when she was on the bus, people would start wrinkling their noses in disgust; she would confront them and say at least she was not prostituting herself in the city. Not too many people have the dignity and humility to accept taking low paying, unglamorous jobs like manual labor. There is a division between the people who are just trying to live honest lives and the people who think it is okay to steal from their own community and because of the crimes in poor communities, the area is looked is down, neglected by the outside world. Hearing the workers teaching themselves to read from classical books discarded in the trash, reminds us that we should not judge.Vik Muniz himself states that if he did not have his parents and found he had to support himself, he too might have had to work in the landfill. Imagine a famous, well renown artist working in Brazil's biggest landfill because of unfortunate circumstances.

 Colon, Panama

      This reminded me a little bit of Colon, Panama. The people of Colon are looked down upon by the Panamanians in Panama because the once glamorous city of Colon looks run down and there is a lot of crime. Even though tourists from the cruise ships stop in Colon, it is not safe for foreigners. It is not even safe for the locals who live there. (I only have gone because of family. Parts of Colon look more beautiful than Panama- more rural, more greenery and open space). The buildings have a similar architecture to the buildings in New Orleans. If the Panamanian government invested more money in Colon to cut down on crime, provide more opportunity to the people of Colon, I think the Department of Tourism and the local community would both benefit. Colon is Panama's second biggest city-it deserves more respect. Going back to the people in Jardim Gramacho...

 

Overly Positive Outlook      

       The film only portrayed a possible outlook on the future of the trash pickers  but otherwise the content and production was well put together. Most of the main characters were able to move on to a better life but for the people who were not the main focus of the documentary, I feel they did not benefit from the improvement of Gramacho. This reminds me of the situation with the Los Diablos Rojos in Panama. The government improved the bus system by regulating it and making it safer for the public, but now some of the original bus drivers are out of a job. I feel Brazil could have included the trash pickers more into the transformation of Jardim Gramacho instead of just improving the trash picking system and leaving the pickers behind. Despite the happy outcome, it is sobering to know that after the Jardim Gramacho gets shut down, some trash pickers will not be able to get better jobs even after job retraining.