Environmental art -- a sampler

Midway: Message from the Gyre 2009
(click on photo to see details)

-- by Chris Jordan, photographer, Seattle.

These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September 2009 on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking. 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.

See also his Midway video, film in preparation 2011; and his online portfolio; his TED talk; scientific explanations of the plastic debris in the Great Pacific Gyre in Wikipedia and 5MDC.

More environmental art (you will find others if you Google the term):

• animation video Shan Shui for the China Environment Protection Foundation
• Ben Zolno rap video "Your life is wrapped in plastic"
• Environmental Art 2.0 survey by Trish Kenow and Luis Perez
• dance "Trash" by Elizabeth A Budd, choreographer (dance starts at the 4 min mark)
• tutorial: how to view Environmental Art with Google Earth
• Ephemeral Art-in-Nature works from University of Guam
• recycler artist Mahmadou Tall Diedhiou, Senegal
• recycler artists of East Hawaii Cultural Council, 21st annual Trash Art show
• recycler animation From Garbage to Garden ("Do Lixo ao Jardim") by Carolina Fontenelle Mello-e-Souza of Brazil, on the poem, "Leilao de Jardim", by Cecilia Meireles.
• section on consumerism from Worldwatch Transforming Cultures (2010) discussion guide.
• Molly Scott's music (some online) and resonance therapy.
• climate change artists and gallery in Resurgence magazine; its book Images of Earth and Spirit.
• articles on artists in Orion magazine and Yes! magazine