Holly Schuck Wasteland Blog

Wow! What a riveting and powerful documentary of transformation through art.  This is the kind of story that changes everyone in it including the audience.  In Wasteland, artist Vik Muniz steps away from the fine arts world he has grown accustom to in an effort to change the lives of a group of people living in poverty.

Art is transforming.  Art allows us to take material and change the way people see it.   Can we change people?  What are the effects?  Vik decides to select a group of “pickers” from Jardim Gramacho, who make $25/day picking recycling material from trash, and using the same materials they work with everyday, turn them into works of art.  “The moment when one thing turns into another, is the most beautiful moment.”, says Vik.

Vik was attempting to pave a way to self sustainability for the pickers, so he had them work in the art studio on their portraits filling in the shadows with recyclable material.  The pickers were transformed by this experience and began to see themselves as artists rather than pickers.  Tiao beautifully expressed, “I never imagined I’d become a work of art.”.  This really touched my heart because I immediately felt that we should all see ourselves that way.  Irma, the woman who cooks for the pickers daily, said, “Sometimes we see ourselves as so small, but people out there see us as so big, so beautiful.”.

Everything depends on perspective.  All of the pickers lives were transformed from the experience.  Not only did they change the way they saw themselves, but they also started making healthier choices for themselves and their families.  The portraits are selling with the profits going to the pickers.  Vik definitely accomplished what he set out to do.  H used art to turn one thing into another

Holly Schuck’s Sally Mann Blog

Art 21, Season 1 featured a 21 century artist named Sally Mann, who really intrigued me for her provocative portraits depicting bones of animals she found out on walks, to nude portraits of her children, and later to landscapes.  Sally strives for imperfection and ambiguity.  It its not an ambiguous shot, she won’t take it.  She likes things that are peculiar and interesting.  She photographs dog bones very close up and in such a way that the viewer really has to ponder just what exactly they are looking at.  I love this about her work because it reinforces a very valuable life lesson; slow down and examine what it is before you before passing sudden judgement.  Unclear meanings allow the work to become alive in the interpretation of the viewer.

In addition to being provocative, Sally is very spontaneous.  She recalls being raised in a very free and natural setting.  She recalls spending much of her youth in the nude, up until the age of 7 when she began school.  It seemed normal to her when her own three children preferred to be in the nude as well.  Sally began to capture these raw and unfiltered precious moments of her children in the innocence of their tender youth.  She is well respected for her photographs and her work is featured publicly, however she has also received some negative attention for exploiting her children.

Next, Sally turned to photographing landscapes which was a relief to her children.  Her son said that he felt relieved.  Her daughter explained that her mother, Sally, was raised with no sense of God, and that her photos are her bible.   Sally is able to express in her photography the feelings that she in unable to express with mere words.

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