Intolerable Beauty: Chris Jordan Photographs American Mass Consumption
1. “The idea [behind this series] was to capture the scale of [our] mass consumption. It was the first time I stood in front of piles of the detritus of our mass consumption.” “Cell phones #2, Atlanta, 2005″
2. “Initially, I thought I was seeing the scale [but] in the end, I realized this was the tiny tip of the iceberg.” “Cell phone chargers, Atlanta, 2004″
3. “It was interesting to see the limitations of this series and the photos. [Mass consumption is an] invisible phenomenon– there’s no one place I can go to capture it all.” “e-Bank, Tacoma, 2004″
4. “There’s a hierarchy of activism…. What my work is about to feel these issues myself…. A large part of change is acknowledging feelings we have and connecting with these issues.” “Crushed cars #2, Tacoma, 2004″
5. “[All this waste] is something that’s sort of kept hidden.” “Oil Filters, Seattle, 2003″
6. “I almost felt like a spy. I felt like this was something people needed to see.” “Spent bullet casings, 2005″
7. “80% [of the photos in this series] were ’straight’ photos. As I ran up against these limitations of photography…I started arranging the subject.” “Circuit boards #2, New Orleans, 2005″
8. “I also felt like I aged about five years during this series. Virtually all the photos…required that I trespass. I’d go ask [for permission to photograph these piles of waste] but I’d get all these vague excuses: Homeland Security, insurance regulations…. I think it was really a weird fear about photography and exposure [even though] I offered veto [power], showed them my previous work, and explained I didn’t name individuals or companies. This was about [documenting] a nationwide, cultural phenomenon.” Circuit boards, Atlanta, 2004″
Having run into the “limitations of photography,” Jordan initiated a new series, “Running the Numbers,” a set of digitally constructed photographs that represent the actual quantities of consumed items. “I’m almost done with this series,” he says at the end of our interview. “I’m hoping to return to a photographic project. I’d like to be a photographer again.”
To learn more about Jordan and his work, please visit his website.
All photos courtesy of Chris Jordan.
Community Connection:
If you’d like to learn more about e-waste, please read this article from our archives, “The Problem with E-Waste.”
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97 Comments... join the discussion!
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Wow, that’s really something. It really is disgusting what we’re doing to the earth. Thank you for enlightening us with these images.
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Staggering! Creating art from the waste we leave in our wake is the only redeeming thing to do, although not generating so much waste would be better. Great images, thanks.
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Awesome photos! Just think how much happiness and productivity those products brought to people. The cars taking people wherever they want to go, the cell phones allowing people to make emergency calls or make calls wherever and whenever they want, the circuit boards allowing scientists to make discoveries. Just shows how productive we are as a nation! Whatta place!
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Remarkable and provocative images – As a fellow photographer I recognize both the artistic quality and social commentary of the work. Congratulations, bravo and well done.
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Is this supposed to bother me?
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yes, and what would you like us to do. Keep our 40MB(1988) hard drives instead of buying a new 2TB(2009) hard drive that holds 50 thousand times more data in the same amount of space.
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Pictures = Amazing, great photography
Social Commentary = Totally misplacedAs others have said, the fact that these piles are even separated and not left in a mass landfill means that they are going to be RECYCLED. The commentary attached to these photos doesn’t seem to match the subject. If it had been pictures of these things strewn across roads, forests, oceans, etc. the commentary would have totally matched, but these are actually pictures of the RIGHT way to manage and recycle the waste of accelerated technological progress. I’m INCREDIBLY GLAD piles like these exist because it means that we’re at least trying to be responsible about how we manage our waste.
If you don’t want the waste from 300 million people just left where it falls or collected into central places and recycled, where DO you want it???
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KV-
As the photographer says, the items (which yes, are sorted to be recycled) are a reflection of the tendency toward mass consumption– overconsumption. The fact that the items will ultimately be recycled doesn’t make the phenomenon of mass consumption any less worrisome or problematic.
Further, if you look at where many of these “recycled” items end up, you’ll find that they’re not so environmentally friendly. Check out our article on e-waste to get an idea about what happens when these items are sent on to other countries.
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Well look at your lung on a scan after 20 years of smoking. That will also be a pretty picture with a lot of shock value, but, as mass consumption produces lots of garbage, whoever is shocked when seeing either of those two pictures can’t be a bright person. Do you people need to see a picture of the earth to believe it’s a sphere?
I am baffled by stupidness of environmentalists. makes me want to dump a few batteries into a lake.
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Why in the world would you trash your environment to spite environmentalists? That seems pretty stupid to me.
Is the issue really about who is a bright person? You are discussing the intelligence of the people being affected by these photos? I think the issue is more about the fact that America is a land of over consumption. The pictures are to bring that fact into people’s hearts. Not to tell them what they don’t already know. People are not stupid for reacting to these pictures. That is the purpose of the pictures. Also, they are entitled to react in their own way.
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Realmente…. una belleza, la imaginacion demostrada para hacer cosas bellas de lo que descartamos nos hace pensar en que tendiamos que cambiar un poco nustros conceptos de vida. No es asi??
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Love your bio. “Writer”, “English”, “Women’s Studies”, “Social Work”. In other words, you *produce* absolutely NOTHING, and therefore feel some psychological need to justify that fact by belittling those who do actually produce something tangible and meaningful with their lives. While your photos are pretty, they don’t actually make any kind of point, except what I explained above.
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Um, Steve– they’re not my photos. Not sure what your grudge is or why you feel that either the photographer or myself are belittling anyone. The issue seems to be yours– and the Internet isn’t really the best or appropriate place to vent that. A therapist might be more useful.
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You’re absolutely entitled to disagree with what you interpret the point of this piece to be, but I think you were just waaaaay more belittling with that comment than the author who I’m pretty sure didn’t mean to belittle anyone.
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All funded by personal debt. Less debt cmeans less consumption.
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I’m sure this is a redundant comment, but I LOVE these pictures.
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it’s not about there being this much stuff being thrown away and polluting the earth or something — it’s about there being this much stuff to begin with! that many cell phones that were made and then discarded and replaced with new ones, etc, etc. it’s about overconsumption, not about littering.
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This is visual evidence of the hyper-consumption that has sky-rocketed over the last 30 years. It is global, unprecedented and should be mind boggling. However, we are living right in the middle of this advertising driven, all consuming, shop till you drop mania. No one is shocked because we don’t know anything else. It appears normal.
Our levels of over-consumption pollute the oceans, the land and the air. Our children get sick from it. Human cultures are being destroyed by a one world, one Walmart way of thinking. Species are dying at a rate that compares to the mass extinction caused by comet impact. The entire planet’s climate is altered by it. Yet, no one is shocked or is moved to change.
We are done.
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Thanks for putting this together Julie! Jordan’s work is definitely though provoking — forcing us to take a close look at the real impact of our everyday lifestyles. We just did an interview with him over at Wend: http://wendmag.com/greenery/2009/07/mass-consumption-photographer-chris-jordan/
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I am sorry, but you are wrong. Particularly the circuit boards, oil filters, which are very hard and expensive to recycle. Most of our garbage WILL end up in a land fill. Please google “the story of stuff” and watch the short documentary. Wake up! The American dream is over!
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These comments are really interesting. Clearly these photos have touched a nerve with a lot of people.
I don’t think the photographer or anyone involved are trying to point fingers and incite guilt. Clearly Mr. Jordan owns a camera, and, I’m willing to bet, quite a few other gadgets. I have a laptop, cell phone, camera, mp3 player, etc., and I drink out of plastic bottle occasionally, and once upon a time I owned a car.
I don’t feel guilty about that. But I think these pictures help put a striking image to the fact that we are increasingly accumulating more stuff in recent decades than ever before. Unprecedented actions lead to unprecedented results.
No one’s saying we should stop consuming and adapt a monk-like lifestyle. But we can and should start thinking about how we want to handle this new development.
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These photographs are beautiful. I really like the story behind it. I’ve been to the dumps in Atlanta. I got lost in the compound for 15 minutes driving to a yard waste drop-off. I remember feeling strange when I left.
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@huggy muggy if this is like you say “ultra-leftist propaganda trying to dramatize a problem that doesn’t exist”, out of what kind of propaganda are you speaking? the ultra-consumerist-buy-a-mobile-every-six-month propaganda?
why do you think we – the people of the world – have now a global footprint of 1.4, meaning that we consume 1.4 times what the earth can produce in a year? where is the so called recycling?
“I am not interested in defending mass consumption, but these pictures are just well made propaganda which an adult should be able to spot”
well, you spotted it! now go back to your individual consumption patterns in a mass society!
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Amazing photos… yes, although it’s obvious that the photographer made it on purpose to enhance such images to give the impression of the overconsumption, it actually is true that we produce a lot and sometimes unnecessary waste. It’s fair to say that it’s not *entirely* our fault because the system is based on a planned obsolescence that’s becoming really not sustainable by the planet, recycling or not. We might just react to this and try to be less consumers and more “planet-conscious”. Great post, good to see awareness on such common problems.
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It is amazing to me the anti-environmentalists’ comments here. Are people really this angry at people who care about over consumption and waste? Wow!
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“It is amazing to me the anti-environmentalists’ comments here. Are people really this angry at people who care about over consumption and waste? Wow!”
——– I think the anger is brought on by the realization that the enemy is US. To have a visual representation of mass consumerism is like uncovering some nasty family secret that we know exists but would rather keep it hidden and not dealt with.
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Here’s a take on the angry comments.
People who have been working in the trenches in the recycling world may be frustrated with the lack of understanding the ‘rest of us’ seem to exhibit. According to their expert eyes, these separated piles of materials indicate that they are destined for recycling.
But those in the recycling industry, and those in industries that generate such volumes of materials can’t continue to hide from the sunlight (ie, avoid being photographed as Chris indicates) – and then expect people to have the same level of detailed knowledge that they do about these ‘piles’.
We are all consumers. We all have upgraded our computers and cell phones. We can all share in an open discussion on the problems and issues in an effort to better understand the unintended consequences of our actions, and how to curb or correct them. The focus should be on creating more effective solutions.
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These are pictures of what we are doing correctly. All are of recycling efforts. Efforts that should be more accessible to the consumer. Too many times I have found it difficult to properly dispose of items. Too often recyclable items go to the landfill.
We have hazardous waste collection that refuses hazardous waste. What does the consumer do with it?
We have towns and cities charging for trash collection. Why do you think we have piles of trash along the roads?
We must make it easier to dispose of and recycle our waste properly. Perhaps photos of landfills and illegal dumping would be more motivating. Perhaps a recycling tax assessed on every item sold, based on its end of life cost to dispose of.
Unfortunately these monies always seem to find their way into the “general” fund.↵ -
El futuro de la humanidad pende de nuestro nivel de concienciación en relación a dos temas de vital importancia:
1. La eficiencia hidrica. Es preciso nos concienciemos de la importancia del agua como agente benefactor para el desarrollo y proteccion del medio ambiente.
Es preciso detener la contaminacion del agua a base de promover el <> en los nucleos de poblacion.
Ademas es necesario gestionar debidamente los regimenes pluviales, a base de estanques de tormentas.
2. La gestión y la tecnologia del reciclaje. Se trata de no seguir esquilmando los recursos del planeta, y de evitar los vertidos incontralados de residuos solidos urbanos, que detrioran el medio ambiente y como consecuencia la salud humana.
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I think the point is – this stuff is all useless to us after so short a time – we view everything we have as disposable. Recycling isn’t magic, people. It can be a dirty process and quite harmful to the environment – plus the factor- where do we put it before it is recycled? Who wants this in THEIR back yard?? We should be supporting of sustainable and reusable long- lasting, fixable things – fix it don’t toss it! And while I think it DOEs exemplify how much we waste – things are intentionally built to fail and die so we can buy new. If you want to hear disgusting know that Virginia’s #1 import is garbage from other states. They are filling their country side, the purple mountains majesty, with trash. Recycling is great! BUT reusing and buying products that LAST and are FIXABLE is BETTER!!!!
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This is art. That means everyone is entitled to, and should have, their own individual reaction. It hits us all a different way. It is okay for people to think different things than you. They’ve had different experiences than you.
I feel as if you haven’t been to a landfill. Sure, maybe some of these things are going to be recycled. But do you know how many people recycle as much as they should? Not many. I live in a city of about only 300,000 people. Just one of our landfills is full of more than 6 million tons of trash. Do you know what they have to do when they run out of room there? They have to move to another location. Landfills are not bottomless. They are massive in size and toxic to the environment. If we keep living the way we are living now and make no changes, the planet will slowly but surely be covered in them.
Huggy Muggy, perhaps you need to look at the facts. Think about taking a tour of your local landfill. Talk to the workers there. They will tell you that more than half of the items in the landfill are recyclable. They will tell you about leachate, methane, and other harmful toxins caused by landfills. They will tell you that even once they cover the trash up and move to another site, that land can never be safely used again. Have you ever heard of the Love Canal or the Valley of the Drums?
Anyway. Perhaps you recycle, but most people do not. Of course recycling works. Right now it is very costly because not enough people are doing it. It is okay for people to be shocked by these photos, because perhaps that will cause them to recycle or recycle more. What do you have against that? Our mass consumption is a problem. There are ways to fix it. These photos could spur some action.
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We are witnessing the last stand of the great hulking American Neanderthal, spawn of 200 years of force feeding by capitalism, corporatism, and now, deserted by his capitalists, corporatists, for cheaper labor in China. He is facing a falling dollar, rising oil prices and his own unsustainable diet of high caloric meats, and is unable to defend himself with a Military bought out by the oil barons and in mercenary service. His dollar, reflecting his worth to the world, falls like a stone in value, he will soon fall into a sad extinction overcome by the rice and veggie burning Asians. They are much smaller in physical stature, and adapt to the new technologies of computer driven electromechanical and hydraulic strengths in use. They are easily and cheaply educated, this year alone they have produced, in China, more post-graduates, with IQ’s of 130+ than the U.S.A has high school students, drop-outs included! India has done the same, and as U.S. schools fall to a rating of 32nd in the world, too! Expect in the next great depression, the demise and extinction of the great hulking American Neanderthal – no bigger bones than his have been found in all antiquity – he will no longer demand with his dollar 80% of the world’s resources, as it is almost fallen to worthlessness as we speak, Gold at over $1000.00 an ounce, oil pushing $80.00 a bbl, his national debt so astounding even his printing machines cannot keep with zero’s and abbreviations are used! He faces the onslaught of Asians on his industries, cities, SEE: http://uprooted.jessicareeder.com/2009/09/detroit-and-the-100-dollar-house/comment-page-1/#comment-3003 His own capitalists, corporatists, have absconded with capital he entrusted them, to the Beijing, Shanghai and Hang Seng stock markets for better ROI, and have converted the money to non-manipulated Yuan, away from his easy to print “funny money”, and he is left alone in his crumbling streets to fight it out with drug lords and street gangs, corrupt officials, bought and sold police forces and the Banksters from Wall street! He will be mired in his own wastes, not even trying to bio-gas sewage, salting fields for ROI in California, his own bread basket, and he is guilty of practicing farming using accountancies equations for ROI and a “damn the future” attitude – the future has become now, the fields, sewage gazes, sewage fertilizers, are gone, and he will grow hungry for this! his health is locked in to a corrupt and rich Medical Cartel, He filled his lakes with pollution, and now, is thirsty, all is coming to a peak, it looks to be in this decade, and he will be reduced! These photos, combined with those of the new American Johannesburg, Detroit City, certainly tell a tale, and not a happy one at all.
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I think these photos are nothing than a lackmus test for low intelligence. If you have low intelligence, all you will be able to say is “ohhh this is beautiful, and aweful! So much trash”.
People who feel frightened by a landfill full of cell phones shouldn’t go tell people who aren’t that they are not seeing the assumed problem, but rather try to on their capability of imagination.
The real problem is that you environmentalists seem to be unable to imagine how many people live on this world, or even just the US. I may be hard (to an imbecile only, though, imho) to imagine so many people, but if you took a photo of 300 million people it would look very very messy. Now imagine (I know, I know, you can’t) just 2% of these 300 million discarding a cell phone (and the cell phones on the pictures aren’t exactly newer models), and you will understand that there is nothing frightening about a landfill of cell phones.
When you start to be able to really imagine how many people are 7 billion people are, you will have to agree that the amount of trash these 7 billion people produce isn’t so bad after all. It’s just a few landfills in each country. I think we are doing fine. And no, I am not being ironic.
The ultimate consequence for the environmentalists, as they think they figured out the solution for mankind to become happy, would be to become fascists and tell everyone how to live their lives.
In my opinion, 99% of environmentalists are just envious. Envious of people who have more money and are able to buy new stuff, or people who don’t have such a depression that gives them a fit when they think of consuming or buying.
We’re doing fine. Check the facts. The trash isn’t our problem at all. But, the thread proves it again, left people are prone to be tricked by smoke and mirrors, which ultimately these photos are.
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So quick to condemn ourselves and America. You could go to almost any country in Europe or Asia and reproduce the same pictures. It’s like you feel guilty and want to condemn America.
BTW Uncle B. Capitalism is not failing here or anywhere. What is failing is forced socialism and communism. Capitalism made America great and lifted the standard of living worldwide. Socialists have destroyed their countries by dragging down their previously thriving economies with socialist regulation and the taxes used to prop up their entitlement programs. Unions (more socialists) have driven up the price of unskilled labor to the point that even union labor won’t buy the overpriced goods produced by union labor.
During the 70s and 80s, while America was waking up to the pollution we were creating and living, the socialists behind the Iron Curtain continued to pollute and destroy their land. Russia is the most contaminated country on earth. So while the ‘evil’ capitalists were cleaning up their act, the vaunted socialist models all you liberals aspire to turned their back to the damage they were doing.
Europe is lost….. They will be an Islamic republic under Shari law in 20 years. Don’t even claim that they are an example to follow.
The answer to all you complain about, pollution, energy independence, health care and everything else is CAPITALISM! Nothing will solve a problem quicker than man with a solution that makes money!
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“I also felt like I aged about five years during this series. Virtually all the photos…required that I trespass. I’d go ask [for permission to photograph these piles of waste] but I’d get all these vague excuses: Homeland Security, insurance regulations…. I think it was really a weird fear about photography and exposure [even though] I offered veto [power], showed them my previous work, and explained I didn’t name individuals or companies. This was about [documenting] a nationwide, cultural phenomenon.” Circuit boards, Atlanta, 2004″
so offering veto and all that-didn’t matter? because you would trespass and acquire the shots anyways?? so why bother asking for permission?
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I look at those huge masses of items and see possibilities. I wonder with some of those items just how they are recycled, I wonder what the components can be used for. Just what will they be re-made into … and will anyone ever actually know what they were in a previous cycle. Really … most of these goods can be broken down to components, base metals, and the inevitable toxic non-recyclable too.
Just how much of this … is not actually re-cycled or reused in some way. That for me is the only disturbing part.
I know that these are mass examples of sorted detritus … but it reminds me of a disturbing example of waste in my own community.
Where I work we take the time to divide our rubbish/trash according to our local government guidelines into the assorted classes of recycling and general waste. Yet, I watched the collection people come and tip the lot into the same garbage truck. It disturbed and disappointed me. How can we be the change we’d like to be in the world .. when some one else undoes our work?
Just my two bobs worth and a question.
Cheers
Baie.
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I agree, capitalism did bring America to “such great heights.” But it was at the expense of most of the rest of the world, if we raised any standards of living, it was from the “trickle down economics” that dripped off our excess.
Anyway, capitalism is based on a linear growth pattern that can only last so long before it collapses under it’s own weight. It’s time is through.
My prediction is our future economy is based on resources, not capital. It’s the only way to have an economy that doesn’t eventually pop from inflation. I bet we’ll go back to bartering eventually, hopefully on a global level now instead of just a local level. Plus, non-exhaustible free energy is on the way. Once we have free energy it will be possible for everyone to have the same standard of living.
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I don’t feel outrage here, I feel gypped. Where is the rest of the information? Sure, the pictures at first glance make the problem look ginormous, insurmountable. But, we’re not getting the whole picture here. Just like those photos circulating the ‘net, showing the supposed “country-sized” amount of garbage dumps floating about our oceans. Only, no one can ever seem to produce an aerial shot of the entire thing. The photos above are possibly cool from an art standpoint, but not from any environmental standpoint. Give us the whole view, give us all of the facts. How much of this is where it is, because it’s being prepared to be recycled? Is it spread in one single layer, or a 30 foot deep pile?
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Wow Huggy Muggy, you sound intelligent. Same with you, Steve.
“In my opinion, 99% of environmentalists are just envious. Envious of people who have more money and are able to buy new stuff, or people who don’t have such a depression that gives them a fit when they think of consuming or buying.”
Sure that makes sense! Who would have thought that environmentalists actually care about the environment and realize that people are using the planet like a garbage dump. And of course, there’s absolutely no problem with using up resources faster than they can replenish themselves. And all those polluted lakes and oceans? Not our problem. What about the animals that choke on garbage and get caught in giant fishing nets? They’re just too stupid to know any better.
Just because our selfish actions harm the environment, doesn’t mean we should care right? It’s not like it’s directly affecting us.
Why take responsibility when we can just blame other countries that are worse than us? As long as there are other countries creating worse problems for the environment, we don’t have to do anything. Plus, having all this awesome stuff makes us happy right? And that’s of course the most important thing. Who needs to see the effects we create when we can just be safe in our own comfortable bubble?
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As anticipated, the pro-capitalist, corporatist faction, totally propagandized, have jumped on the bandwagon, comparing socialism! Where are the alternatives? Is Socialism to Capitalism as black is to white? NO! There are other less propagandized ways of doing things! What are they? Why are we diverted automatically by our strong propaganda to immediately draw comparisons and invoke Socialism, then communism and in negative terms, as the only alternative philosophies? This is only so in the well propagandized American mind! The oriental philosophies may bring other notions to the fore that will entrance the down-beaten American soul! What if: just what if there were a wider range of ideas outside the “American Box”? Outside the strict limits of Capitalism or Socialism only alternative theory? Outside our schooling, beyond our severely narrow-minded propagandization all these years? India presents a different form of “Democracy” as defined by the American propagandists! Very different indeed! Still democracy, but not by Yankee Doodle’s indoctrination! Goddamn! Outside his box! China’s communism/capitalism doesn’t fit anything Americans can digest in their narrow-minded, rigid and well propagandized, criteria oriented, definition system, so we wallow in mis-information! Fact is: All this pollution was originated by Capitalism’s seeking higher ROI! and has very little to do with sustainable survival of mankind! Childish bull Shiite fed, the Americans set the “one use, throw away” system in motion and set wrong precedent for the rest of the world! The Americans today face and Armageddon! They no longer have a strong dollar to demand these follies at the expense of 80% of the worlds resources! They will go through belt-tightening, and trend-set sustainability in the world, or face extinction! Remember: The U.S.S.R. faded to rubble in a single decade! America can do the same! The precedent was set thirty years ago! It is so possible! History shows Empires rapidly fading to rubble! Beware America!
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It’s pretty funny that when someone makes a statement through art that you happen to notice you feel the need to act with such incredible hostility and resort to accusing the artist of left-wing propaganda.
There are several themes to this work – one is environmental – yes. I can easily think of some other important themes – greed, the rise of manufacturism and its impacts on society, the excess of the developed world…
By opening the forum with this rather hateful and condemning comment you have forced individuals to resort to an alternative position to yourself – so this conversation has degenerated into capitalists vs socialists.
Its bizarre really – perhaps more about you and your personal agenda than the agenda of the artist?
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Astounding. We make so much waste and it is only getting worse as things get cheaper. We really need to rethink how often we buy new and through away. I must say though, amazing photos.
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I agree completely.
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