Running the numbers. An American self-portrait

Startling digital photographs paint a disturbing yet strangely seductive picture of American life today.
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. Renowned photographer Chris Jordan brings these staggering numbers to life in manipulated digital photographs that are at once alluring and shocking. A landscape of toothpicks, each representing a felled tree, stretches into the horizon; a looping maze 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 of surprising beauty, this book, manufactured from recycled materials, helps us grasp visually the potential consequences of our culture of waste.