Pacific Science Center

Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers

October 3, 2009 - January 3, 2010

Did you know that in the United States we consume…
60,000 plastic bags every five seconds?
106,000 aluminum cans every thirty seconds?
two million plastic beverage bottles every five minutes?

Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers turns everyday statistics into provocative artistic statements about economics, culture, and the American way of life. The exhibition looks at contemporary American culture through the lens of statistics. Many of the images portray a specific quantity of something: 426,000 cell phones (the number retired every day); 2.3 million orange prison uniforms (the number of Americans incarcerated annually); 106,000 aluminum cans (the number used in the US every 30 seconds).

“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,” said Chris Jordan, artist and creator of Running the Numbers. “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; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.”

Chris is an artist based in Seattle, who is best known for his large scale works depicting consumerism in the United States. Many of his works are created from photographs of garbage, a technique which started when he visited an industrial yard to look at patterns of color and order. His passion for conservation and awareness has brought much attention to his photography in recent years.

Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society in large intricately detailed prints, assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Chris hopes to raise some questions about the role of the individual in a society that “is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.”

With CityPass, admission is free to the exhibit Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers. For more details, please call Pacific Science Center at 206-443-2001 or visit pacificsciencecenter.org.