Whenever I tell people what I want to do with my life, what I’m studying, they always end up asking, “what is community art?”
This is a hard question to answer. On the one hand, it’s self-explanatory: a group of people come together by creating some form of art in a way that strengthens their community. But there is so much there, so many possibilities.
As I do more research and get exposed to different projects, I’m starting to build a repertoire of examples. Wasteland and the art it documents the creation of is my newest example. As soon as I saw the movie I called my mother. “This!” I said, “This is community art!”
Last week, as I settled down to paint, I saw a Facebook post from my stepbrother’s girlfriend telling me to watch Wasteland. I had seen it before as I flipped through Netflix and my curiosity had been peaked, but it took a direct recommendation and the right mindset for me to actually play it as I painted.
Soon it became obvious that this was not a documentary to put on for background noise while painting. This was a movie to sit and watch with no distractions. My paintbrush lay still in my hand as I experienced the story of Vik Muniz and the scavenger’s at Jardim Gramacho, the largest garbage dump in the world. These men and women spent their livings moving through the trash dump searching for recyclables. Many had been brought there by ill-fate like the death or sickness of a family member. Others referred to it as a last resort that was still better than selling drugs or prostitution.
Vik Muniz, a famous New York artist, decided to go to Jardim Gramacho in order to make portraits of the people who work there out of the materials they are surrounded by: garbage. He employed the people he was depicting to help him arrange garbage around gigantic projections of photographs. Once the projections were filled in with garbage, he photographed those and sold the prints for tens of thousands of dollars. All of the money went to support the people of Jardim Gramacho.
Opportunity, strength, community, beauty, and hope were found in the least likely of places. Vik Muniz made beautiful pieces of art with the help of a community strengthened that community both economically and socially.
That, my friends, is community art.