Waste Land

Barbara and I saw this wonderful film at the True/False Film Festival last week in Columbia. I've attempted to purchase the film to make it available to show students, but it doesn't have a distributor yet. I've been noticing more and more that artists are including social responsibility as part of their artwork. Fantastic!

Director: Lucy Walker

Country: UK

Synopsis: Brazilian artist Vik Muniz creates photographic images of people using found materials from the places where they live and work. His "Sugar Children" series portrays the images of deprived children of Caribbean plantation workers using the sugar from their surroundings. When acclaimed filmmaker Lucy Walker trains her camera on Muniz, he is cultivating a new idea for a project. He knows the material he wants to use—garbage—but who will be the subject of the new series of works? Waste Land is a wonderfully resonant documentary that chronicles Muniz's journey to Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. He collaborates with an eclectic band of catadores, or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials, and photographs these inspiring characters as they recycle their lives and society’s garbage. Walker gains fantastic access to the entire process and, in doing so, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the dignity that can be found in personal determination. [Synopsis courtesy of Sundance Film Festival] --Website--

Work to revise Columbia’s cultural plan is underway

(COLUMBIA, MO) – Citizens are invited to provide input to the city’s Commission on Cultural Affairs as a revision of Columbia’s cultural plan, called “Creative Columbia,” gets underway.

First adopted in 1993, shortly after the Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) was established within city government, Creative Columbia has been revised over the years in an attempt to stay current with the art and cultural needs of the community, local arts organizations and artists.

The last update of Creative Columbia took place in 2005 and re-established four goal areas: Arts Education, Arts Business, Arts Visibility and Arts Policy. The current plan can be found at www.GoColumbiaMo.com/Arts or by contacting the OCA.

A brief survey for citizens to complete is currently posted on the OCA’s Web page, www.GoColumbiaMo.com/Arts (select the “Public Input Opportunity” link near the top of the page). It will be available there through April. A hard copy of the survey form can be obtained from the OCA.

Input collected from the survey will be reviewed by the citizen members of the Commission on Cultural Affairs as they work to generate the next update of the plan. It is the goal of the Commission and the OCA to present a revised cultural plan to City Council for its review later this year. If adopted, the plan will be in place for approximately five more years.

That Columbia has a cultural plan is proof of the vitality of the local arts industry. Few other communities in Missouri have an established plan for ensuring that diverse art and cultural opportunities are available to citizens and visitors. The city’s longtime efforts in this arena are one reason Columbia was named Missouri’s first-ever Creative Community by the Missouri Arts Council in 2007.

March 5, 2010
CONTACT: Marie Nau Hunter
Cultural Affairs Manager
(573) 874-7512

The city’s cultural planning efforts are supported with financial assistance from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.