Chris Jordan And The Art Of Consumerism
By Anne O'Loughlin
Filed Under Arts & Culture |
Chris Jordan, an accomplished nature photographer, has now taken America’s consumption habits to heart. He’s shocked US audiences with Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait, a creative statistical view of how much trash is actually piling up in the United States. He uses the objects which people consume massive quantities of and photographs them en masse in an artful way. This play on Seurat’s famous Sunday In The Park actually represents the 106,000 aluminum cans Americans go through every 30 seconds.
Running the Numbers, completed in 2007, is a series of photographic and digital representations of over-the-top consumer culture which brings some already despairing statistics to light. The photographs are huge zoomed out shots of garbage, such as the piece below depicting 2 million plastic beverage bottles, which Chris informs us is the number used in the US every five minutes! 
Chris describes the inspiration for his work eloquently,”The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.” There are so many more incredible pieces in Chris’s portfolio, you just really have to check it out for yourself.
His earlier work, Intolerable Beauty (2003-2005), is a dark and slightly macabre look at our nation’s industrial yards, shipping ports and landfills. The pieces are truly gripping…uncomfortably and painstakingly reflecting the negative impact we are having on our environment.
As Chris explains, “I am most interested when people see my work and talk about themselves. It is easy to talk about the work - the print quality or how I composed it or whatever, but my antennae go up when a viewer talks about their own process of facing the issues that I’m trying to raise. It is not comfortable territory, so it is always rewarding when someone who is willing to show up for that conversation.”
So how did this photographer go from snapping gorgeous shots of nature in its purest form to shooting landfills?
“It came quite by accident,” Chris explains. “I took a photograph of a pile of garbage, for purely aesthetic reasons— I just thought the color was interesting and beautiful. Friends who saw this photo started talking about consumerism, which at first was annoying because I thought they were misinterpreting my work. But later I realized I had stumbled on a way to connect my work with the real world, and I have been following this thread ever since.” And to fantastic accolades, at that. Chris Jordan’s work has been featured in dozens of magazines like Esquire, Outside, and Adbusters, on television and radio, and has received a handful of awards and grants. His eco collections are currently touring select galleries and museums across the US and Europe. This past April, Chris traveled around the world with National Geographic as their international Eco Ambassador for Earth Day 2008.
So what’s next for the busy eco-activist artist? “Currently I am working on new Running the Numbers images that will look at some issues that are more global in scope: the world’s oceans, African issues, species extinctions, and a few others…so please stay tuned.”
Stay tuned we will. Start by checking Chris out on Current TV…
Anne O’Loughlin is the President and Founder of Autonomie Project, a new Fair Trade fashion and footwear company. She and her company are strong advocates for Fair Trade principles, anti-sweatshop activism, and sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyles.
Posted on June 2, 2008 |
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