Chris Jordan (part 2)

Well I mentioned him a while ago in a previous post, but here's the 1 page report I gave on him:

Jessica Power
April 27, 2010
Thinking About Sustainability

Chris Jordan uses art as a means to depict statistics that most people would otherwise have a difficult time understanding. By duplication images representing anything from plastic bottles to packing peanuts and showing them on a large scale, people have a better visual indicator of the immense impact these products can have on the world in only a brief amount of time. In his image “Gyre” on his website www.chrisjordan.com , Jordan shows “2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour”. The images of plastic are compiled to show one whole image that is a direct reference to Hokusai’s “Great Wave Off Kanagawa”. On one level the image “Gyre” is referring to the waves and how they can now be seen as completely littered by unfathomable amounts of plastic waste. On another level the image of the gyre also refers to a kind of chaotic storm which is how Jordan views the amount of plastic waste found in the Pacific Ocean. The culmination of these depictions leaves the viewer feeling overwhelmed and helpless –mush like you would if a giant wave was coming down on you. Only this isn’t a wave of water crashing down – it’s the knowledge of what people are doing to the environment and what reality we have created and now have to face.