Vik Muniz is an artist that works out of New York but born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Vik is use to working with different material and putting them together to form one big art piece. He stepped out of his comfort zone to not only showcase his talent, but to give back to the country and people from where he was born. Vik took on the project of collecting recyclable materials and turning those into an art piece. He reached out to the landfill called Jardim Gramacho, the largest landfill in the world at that time. Vik wanted to auction off some of his work to give back to those pickers and help them further their community. A theme that sticks out from Vik's actions is the life and dignity of the human person. As Catholics, we need to show love and treat every life with care and respect. Vik went to the place where the people didn't get any type of recognition and were treated poorly. He showed them affection and showed all of us that they have feelings and experience love and love lost. Another theme that is important to remember is the dignity of work and the rights of workers. ACAMJG was the association of the workers at Jardim Gramacho and the association never received any type of funding from the country. Vik realized that these workers don't get paid very much and noticed that they all carried themselves very well. Even though some people didn't want to work there anymore, they found the work to be more honest and better than stealing or prostituting themselves. .
Vik's motivation to do this art project wasn't raise money for himself, but to raise it for the people that work at Jardim Gramacho. Vik took on this project knowing that the work itself wasn't going to be easy and that the people there might not like the fact of being photographed while they were working. The experience there was completely opposite though. When Vik arrived, the people there had positive attitudes and people were joking around and were hoping to get their pictures taken.