Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan is an internationally acclaimed photographer and filmmaker whose works are exhibited and published worldwide. His work walks the fine line between beauty and despair while exploring the dark undercurrents of our consumer culture’s focus on disposability and mass consumption. Jordan’s first foray into the subject was a project Intolerable Beauty which featured the enormous amount of waste in various areas throughout Seattle. This led to Running the Numbers that used innovative perspectives to demonstrate the enormous magnitude of our mass consumption.

Jordan’s largest project to date is a series of photographs and a film inspired by a stunning environmental tragedy that is taking place on a tiny atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. He and his team photographed and filmed thousands of young albatrosses that lay dead on the ground, their stomachs filled with plastic, underscoring the destructive power of our culture of consumption, and our damaged relationship with the living world. In addition to his photo series Midway: Message from the Gyre, Jordan also created a film called Albatross which serves as a look into the beauty and imbalance of our world.

His talk at TEDxSeattle will introduce his latest work which still focuses on the environment but marks a significant shift in his outlook and approach by drawing our attention to the awesome beauty of places on the planet that should be treasured and protected.

When not working in the field, Jordan enjoys playing jazz piano – it’s the thing he misses most about not having a permanent location. Jordan has lived a nomadic life for the past year, traveling from exhibitions to project locations with occasional stops in Seattle.