Running the NumbersAn American Self-Portrait Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month.

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

~chris jordan, Seattle, 2007

Guess what this is?

Depicts one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.

What do you think this is?

Depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006.

And this…?

Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

Dedication to the Environment by exploring the interconnectedness of all life on earth and learning ways to protect, respect and live in harmony with the environment.

We’re pretty environmentally hip here at MHS. The question is “What can we do even better to support this aspect of our mission?”