Chris Jordan: Plastic Bottles, 2007

Chris Jordan is an environmental artist whose series, Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, uses statistics to bring attention to a cause. He uses altered photography to show a a stunning visual story of the effects of mankind on the environment. At first glance the photograph, Plastic Bottles (2007), looks like random color textures. However, when the viewer looks up close she can see that the colors are in fact two million plastic bottles. Two million is the amount of bottles Americans use every five minutes. It is a startling and thought provoking image. It makes the viewer think twice about using or at least not recycling plastic bottles. In other work by the artist he depicts 426,000 cell phones to represent the amount of cell phones retired in the U.S. everyday, 1.14 million paper bags used in U.S. supermarkets every hour, and 28,000 42-gallon barrels of oil to represent the amount of oil consumed in the U.S. every two minutes. Th artist states that, "Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing...this project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society. My underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible and overwhelming."