An American Self Portrait by Chris Jordan

Submitted by AZ_Sun on October 12, 2007 - 12:31pm

Photographic Artist Chris Jordan makes art of out excessive waste. He turns the statistics of consumerism into palpable images in his new photo series, Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait.

He depicts in photographs the quantity of things people consume and the quantity of things people discard. He makes these photographs to try to get at the scale of the mass consumption of 300 million people.

Chris has recently appeared on the Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS and on The Colbert Report on Comedy Central...watch PBS here and Colbert Report here!

His exhibit will be at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles through Oct. 20th.

Check out the below photographs at www.chrisjordan.com.

Shipping Containers, 2007
Depicts 75,000 shipping containers, the number of containers processed through American ports every day.

Office Paper, 2007
Depicts 30,000 reams of office paper, or 15 million sheets, equal to the amount of office paper used in the US every five minutes.

Cans Seurat, 2007
Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

Plastic Bags, 2007
Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds.

Paper Bags, 2007
Depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour.

Cell Phones, 2007
Depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.

Jet Trails, 2007
Depicts 11,000 jet trails, equal to the number of commercial flights in the US every eight hours.

Plastic Bottles, 2007
Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

Toothpicks, 2007
Depicts 8 million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees harvested in the US every month to make the paper for mail order catalogs.

Consumption

AZ_Sun's blog
Login or register to post comments
1111 reads

Supporting the Message

Atraction's action communities are created to help people plug-in and engage after seeing our films. Help us continue our work and support the message by buying our DVDs, T-shirts or other cool things related to our films. The films we make are created to raise awareness and help foster change around issues of the environment, social justice, consciousness, health and well-being. With each film we launch and action community and conduct educational tours of the film to universities and schools. We also create teaching materials that help people dive deeper into the subject. By purchasing a DVD, or other things, you help spread the message.

Purpose

The purpose of this website is to inspire people to take action. We encourage people to take action at home and in their communities. On this social action website, you will see thousands of examples of what people have chosen to do to make the world a better place. We believe that when people see what other people are doing, it helps them take action too. So we ask that you open a profile, and tell us what action you are doing, perhaps you are going to plant a vegetable garden, or you are going to help start a recycling program at school, whatever it is, let us know and tell us how it's going. You can post videos, pictures and statements. If you need inspiration, check and see what people have done by looking on the action map or joining a group that has already started. Together, step by step, action by action, we can create a healthy and just world.

Take Action

Stop talking. Now is the time. Take action here.