The first time I worked with colors was by making these mosaics of Pantone swatches. They end up being very large pictures, and I photographed with a very large camera – an 8×10 camera. So you can see the surface of every single swatch – like in this picture of Chuck Close. And you have to walk very far to be able to see it. Vik Muniz Read Quote
I was born in Brazil and grew up in the ’70s under a climate of political distress, and I was forced to learn to communicate in a very specific way – in a sort of a semiotic black market. You couldn’t really say what you wanted to say; you had to invent ways of doing it. You didn’t trust information very much. Vik Muniz Read Quote
Gramacho is the last landfill that allows people in. Brazil is the leading nation in recycling due to its poverty. There are people there surviving from what they find in the garbage. Vik Muniz Read Quote
My grandmother taught me how to read, very early, but she taught me to read just the way she taught herself how to read – she read words rather than syllables. And as a result of that, when I entered school, it took me a long time to learn how to write. Vik Muniz Read Quote
The first five minutes in Gramacho is really overwhelming because all of your senses are being attacked. Visually, too, because your eyes move and see fragments of things you recognize, but not quite, so it’s very artistic. Your eyes are moving, then there’s the smell, and the noise is unbearable. Vik Muniz Read Quote