I eventually watched the documentary Ilha das Fores in a class with Larissa. It's a documentary that clearly presents the money-food-rubbish-food chain functioning in Santa Catarina, that shockingly places the feeding needs of industry pigs over those of local children and families. These families come to pick through the scraps not used to feed the pigs (that were the rubbish thrown out by more wealthy local families) to take home and eat themselves.
The second recommendation, Wasteland, I'd actually already seen - it is an amazing documentary that Emma and James
and I went to see at the BFI early last year. Wasteland really moved me at the
time, often comes up in my thoughts and discussions and has been mentioned by various folk since arriving in Brazil. It seems that the documentary got a lot of
exposure here, raising awareness of the living conditions of folk working on
rubbish dumps to sort through the waste separating out recyclable materials to
be sold on.
The focus of Wasteland is
the art project instigated by Victor Muñiz, a successful Brazilian artist
living in the USA whose hope with the project was to contribute something to
society in his home country, sharing some of his success. He collaborated with workers of Jardim Gramacho to
create large ‘photographic’ portraits of them made from the recyclable materials
they separate. It was brilliant to
observe that both he and the workers, arriving to the project with some
concerns founded in unconscious prejudice or stereotyping perhaps, over the
course of the project began to see one another more and more as fellow
humans. Muñiz’ wife at one point voices
her concerns that Muñiz is ‘playing’ with the workers realities, offering them
huge hope in the project, but only for the period of the project – what will
they do afterwards? ...is it unfair to offer them this glimpse of luxury and
then leave them back in their harsh working conditions? Although Muñiz recognizes he cannot offer
anything at the end of the project he believes in its value-in-the-moment, and
as a vehicle to build self-esteem and confidence of the participants, inviting
them to look at themselves afresh and celebrate their individuality. It was really moving at the end of the film
to read about the influence the project had on each of the participants, each
of whom had changed something significantly in their lives as a result, a
testament to the positive impact of art.
Two other points that struck me in the film
were the emphasis the workers placed on referring to the materials they sort as
recycling, NOT rubbish – a
significant and important difference.
The second was that every female participant, when talking about their
work at Jardim Gramacho, was proud to say that they had chosen this job over
prostitution. This struck me as an
indication of how restricted their working options are, I got the feeling for
many women it was one or the other, prostitution or these very tough and
dangerous conditions at the rubbish dump.
As I head into my weeks as volunteer arts educator at Meninadança my head is full of thoughts triggered by Wasteland in particular - the role of the artist on society, the social responsibility of the artist, the potential positive impact of art projects particularly for marginalised groups, the far reaching range of the voice carried through art projects, the work opportunities or lack of them for Brazilian women... and on a very practical level, the wealth of recyclable materials as a free material resource.
:-)
No comments:
Post a Comment