Chris Jordan Art Chris Jordan Seattleite Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan Art

Chris Jordan

Seattleite Chris Jordan has made an international reputation documenting America's culture of consumer excess. He took this photo, "E-Bank, Tacoma, 2004, " at a scrapmetal-recovery facility that sorts, shreds and ships out the scrap.

Chris Jordan took this photo at a Florida cellphoneprocessing plant, which he says sorts about 50, 000 phones a month. Working ones are resold; the rest are shredded and burned to recover a tiny amount of gold in each one. "Pound for pound, there is more gold in cellphones than there is in gold mines, " he says. "All of the remaining material from the phones (something like 99. 995 percent of the phone) goes to a landfill. "

"Barbie Dolls" depicts 32, 000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast-augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the U. S. in 2006. A partial zoom shows how the Barbies are arranged.

"Plastic Cups" depicts 1 million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the U. S. every six hours. A close-up of the cups.

Plastic cups zoomed out.

"Prison Uniforms" depicts 2. 3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. The U. S. has the largest prison population of any country in the world.

"Prison Uniforms" depicts 2. 3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. The U. S. has the largest prison population of any country in the world. Jordan's parents, Rocky and Susan Jordan, view the work on exhibit at the Von Lintel Gallery in New York, June 2007.

Depicts 2. 4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean.

Millions of pieces of plastic zoomed in.

Million pieces of plastic zoomed in furthur.

Millions of pieces of plastic zoomed in even furthur.

Millions of pieces of plastic zoomed in to the max.

Depicts 200, 000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months .

Depicts 166, 000 packing peanuts, equal to the number of overnight packages shipped by air in the U. S. every hour.

Depicts 320, 000 light bulbs, equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage (inefficient wiring, computers in sleep mode, etc. ).

Depicts 320, 000 light bulbs, equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage (inefficient wiring, computers in sleep mode, etc. ).