Chris Jordan (born 1963) is an American artist, photographer and film producer based in
Seattle, Washington.
Works
Many of Jordan's works are created from photographs of
garbage
Garbage, trash, rubbish, or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or gaseous wastes, or toxic waste produc ...
and mass consumption, a serendipitous technique which started when he visited an industrial yard to look at patterns of color and order. Jordan uses everyday commonalities such as a plastic cup and defines the blind unawareness involved in American
consumerism. His work, while often unsettling, is a message about unconscious behaviors in our everyday lives, leaving it to the viewer to draw conclusions about the inevitable consequences which will arise from our habits.
Jordan's work can be grouped in the following series:
* ''Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption'' (2003–2006) – A series of large format photographs depicting the magnitude of America's waste and consumption.
* ''In Katrina’s Wake: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster'' (2005) – A series of photographs taken in 2005 depicting the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cos ...
.
* ''Running The Numbers I: An American Self Portrait'' (2006–2009) – A series of photographic mosaics depicting visualizations of statistics related to America's consumerism, social problems, and addictions.
* ''Running the Numbers II: Portraits of global mass culture''
''Midway'' project
''Midway: Message from the Gyre'' (2009–2013) is a series of photographs depicting rotting carcasses of baby
Laysan albatrosses filled with plastic. These birds nest on
Midway Atoll
Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; haw, Kauihelani, translation=the backbone of heaven; haw, Pihemanu, translation=the loud din of birds, label=none) is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the Uni ...
and are being fed plastic by their parents, who find floating plastic in the middle of the ocean and mistake it for food. This is a part of an ongoing arts and media project called Midway Journey, which has its own website.
In relation to the ''Midway'' photographs, Jordan created another project that was going to be a documentary. It was about the pollution on Midway Atoll called ''"The Midway Film Project"''. The project was successfully funded on
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
in 2012 with over $100,000 worth of donations.
Kickstarter: Join the Midway Film Project
/ref> By 2017, the film was finished and being screened in select locations.
See also
* Of All The People In All The World – an art installation depicting similar statistics, using piles of rice
References
External links
*
Website for the Midway Journey project
Video: Chris Jordan presents his Midway work
at Pop!Tech
*
*
"Turning powerful stats into art" (TED2008)
Midway - a film by Chris Jordan
on YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jordan, Chris
American photographers
Environmental artists
1963 births
Living people
Sierra Club awardees