While this artist may seem to relate more to my earlier work at VCU, he is still relevant to my new work and interests.
His series The Message from Gyre was shot at Midway Atoll, a tiny beach near the middle of the North Pacific, and portrays the negative effects of pollution on the albatross population. He photographs deteriorating albatross chicks who have died from eating toxic waste. While the dead birds' stomach contents seem exaggerated, they aren't. Every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from their toxic diet of human waste and starvation.
He explains:
"To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent."
"Exploring around our country’s shipping ports and industrial yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful."
"My hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake."
The Message from Gyre, 2009
http://www.chrisjordan.com/
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