Vik Muniz

Vik Muniz is a world-renowned artist who lives and works in New York and Rio de Janeiro. Leading museums, such as the MoMA in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Tate in London, have acquired his work for their collections. Muniz began his career as a sculptor, but gradually shifted his interest to photographic representations of his work.

Muniz creates imagery that is challenging, ironic and deceptive out of everyday materials like sugar, thread, diamonds, chocolate syrup and garbage. In his 2010 film Waste Land, which won numerous awards, Muniz returned to his native city Rio de Janeiro to embark on an unusual collaboration with garbage pickers at the Jardim Gramacho landfill, the world's largest garbage dump.

Muniz was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for his social activism, and his work has been on show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, and many more.a