I love art and I'm passionate about the environment. Imagine my joy when I recently stumbled upon the work of artist Chris Jordan, who's taken a powerful step of depicting waste in photographs. I was blown away. Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on.
In Chris' own words: "My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month." Take a look at some of my favorites:
Toothpicks, 2008 Depicts one hundred million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees cut in the U.S. yearly to make the paper for junk mail.
Toothpicks, 2008 Depicts one hundred million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees cut in the U.S. yearly to make the paper for junk mail.
Plastic Cups, 2008 Depicts one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours. The partial zoom and full zoom images even more astounding.
Barbie Dolls, 2008 Depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006. The partial zoom and actual print size takes your breath away.
Barbie Dolls, 2008 Depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006. The partial zoom and actual print size takes your breath away.
Skull With Cigarette, 2007 [based on a painting by Van Gogh] Depicts 200,000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months. When youzoom in, you'll see that this picture was crafted from actual cigarette boxes!
Cans Seurat, 2007 Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds. Partial zoom and full zoom
Seriously, the site speaks for itself. Take 10 minutes and go through all the images. It will definitely give you pause: http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7
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