Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait

Statistics can be daunting and dry: 1,000,000 trees cut down every year; 9,000,000 American children without health insurance; 2,000,000 plastic bottles used every five minutes; 2,300,000 adults incarcerated in U.S. prisons. Renownedphotographer Chris Jordan brings these staggering numbers to life in manipulated digital photographs that are at oncealluring and shocking. A landscape of toothpicks, each representing a felled tree, stretches into the horizon; a loopingmaze of plastic cups reveal how many are used each day on airplane flights; fashioned from soda cans, a replica of a Seurat masterpiece becomes a lesson in waste; and thousands of Barbie dolls-representing the number of breast augmentations performed each year-combine to depict a woman's torso. Filled with astonishing photographs ofsurprising beauty, this book, manufactured from recycled materials, helps us grasp visually the potential consequencesof our culture of waste.