Gramacho night picking (Click to enlarge)

When did you realize that this project was taking off on its own trajectory and was not going to end up the way you initially envisioned it?
VM: The pictures themselves, I was confident that I knew how to make them, so that wasn’t a problem. But the fact that they’re documented in this film — the whole process took on a life of its own. One part of making art is a very selfish pastime, you’re sitting there doing something you enjoy — there’s nothing to explain. But sometimes these things you enjoy doing start assuming forms you don’t expect. I’ve never really believed in political art or art that’s socially relevant because it wants to be socially relevant. These are just pictures. In reality, they don’t claim to be anything but beautiful pictures of the people who work in Gramacho. But the second thing, which is very transformative, is the fact that the people themselves work on them. And that changes everything. It infuses the work with something that I cannot control — that goes beyond my selfishness of making pictures. Because these people have had no contact with art whatsoever, it proves to me, and it shows to them the power that art has of changing, or challenging the way we see. The most important thing for them is to experience making this art project, to put them in a place where they can look at themselves from a different perspective.
LW: I always envisioned it sort of exactly how it came out. The first day I got to the landfill, I saw Valter, the bard of the dump, this tremendous old poet with rhyming slogans that keep everyone on track. He cycled into frame with these little trinkets all over his bike, made a peace sign and grinned. He was so charming. And then you meet Irma, the old woman cooking delicious meals right there in the garbage dump.