pdf of habitat - Australian Conservation Foundation

Human naturea portrait of a garbage pile in an industrial Seattle neighbourhood,unintentionally sparked conversations about the politicsand ethics of material consumption amongst his friends. Strikingthis chord shifted Jordan’s artistic compass. He has become wellknownfor his inventive documentation of the fallout of our softdrink slurping civilisation.But don’t be mistaken. Jordan’s agenda isn’t to merely chroniclethe artefacts of western society’s entropic decadence, theaffluent effluent of our post-industrial consumerist milieu, nortweak the settings of our capitalist activity.His is a more nuanced and altogether more ambitious mandate— to fundamentally shift the way we relate to ourselves andour world. We’re not haunted by a dearth in recycling rates, orlack of investment in green technology. According to Jordan’sanalysis, the bulk of the world’s problems can be traced back toa short-circuiting of our relationship to the most primal and glorioustraits of existence.“When we are disconnected with what we feel, we are disconnectedfrom the world. That is the great power of art. That iswhere art lives — in the realm of feeling. And that is the power ofart, to reconnect us with what we feel.”This is most evident in the analogy he uses to describe hislatest body of work: the Midway Series, which documents thedecaying carcasses of albatross that have inadvertently stuffedthemselves and their young with the colourful polymers you andI use to cap our beverages and containers.Among the most commonly ingested itemsare lighters, packaging, plastic toys, lids and capsof containers and fishing lines. Some chicks werefound to have swallowed entire vials, with oneyoung albatross’s intestine tallying 306 individualplastic pieces.“When I go to a place like Midway Islandand photograph birds filled with plastic, it’snot so much because I care about saving thebirds. That’s why I like the metaphor of thecanary and the coalmine. The coalminers don’trun over to save the canary; they receive the urgentmessage the canary died to deliver to themabout the threat and they act quickly.”Midway Atoll, true to its name, rests halfwaybetween Japan and North America in thecentral Pacific Ocean. The islands, a volcanicstring of barrier reefs, islets and seamounts, areofficially the territory of the United States, andwere formerly used as a naval air base. This once strategicallyvital military outpost was designated a National Wildlife Refugein 1988, with almost three million avian residents, mainly seabirdspecies, including large numbers of both Black-footed andLaysan Albatross, the rare Short-tailed Albatross, and the endangeredLaysan Duck. The islands are one of the world’s greatestknown breeding colonies. The surrounding reefs, lagoons andwaters are a supermarket of dolphins, Hawaiian Monk Seals,squid, octopus and turtles.Plastic is found in thedigestive tracts ofnearly all albatrosswho dine on the debristhat decorate theirnests and ultimatelytheir interiors.Midway Atoll is no longer valued as a geopoliticalvantage point, nor celebrated as a drawcardfor eco-tourists. It is a subtropical convergencezone. The most dominant entity now occupyingthis Hawaiian Archipelago is what has becomecommonly known as the Great Pacific GarbagePatch, one of five concentrated oceanic gyresstaining the bellies and breeding grounds of theworld’s marine habitats.Plastic is found in the digestive tracts of nearlyall albatross who dine on the debris that decoratethe islands’ coasts, their nests and ultimatelytheir interiors. The fatality rate for albatrosschicks is impossibly high — it has been estimatedthat one-third die due to ingestion of plastics feedto them by their unwitting parents.This is a story that wants to be told, and ChrisJordan is the medium this story has chosen to tellit. “My only job is to get myself out of the way. Iwant to present the clearest cleanest best qualitypossible mirror that people can look into and seewhat’s happening there.”He, along with a team of artists and producers,recently harnessed enough goodwill (translatingto well over $100 thousand) on the crowd-fundingwebsite Kickstarter to funda full length documentary, describedas “a powerful visualjourney into the heart of an astonishinglysymbolic environmentaltragedy”.“I want the story of Midway,the epic metaphor that has presenteditself to me, to have themost powerful effect it can onour culture. My own inflatedwish for the film is that it canreach a billion people.”Midway Atoll is a geographicalno-man’s land and aphysical manifestation of ourdeadly waste. Jordan’s damningalbum of environmentalills, the islands and its inhabitantsare more than a carrier pigeonwith a belly full of bottle tops, or a canaryin our coal mine, they’re an unsettling portrait ofour own human nature.For the full interview withChris Jordan, includingan extended photo gallery,download the habitat iPadmagazine at the App Store.habitat13