E pluribus unum

Out of many, one. This Latin phrase is the unofficial motto of The United States of America. Originally it was based on the thirteen colonies becoming one country. Now it seems to mean the many peoples of the U.S., of the entire world really, all coming together as one. The melting pot theory. "Can't we all just get along?" kinda thing.

This post stems from a recurring memory over the past several months - perhaps even a year. A recurring memory of something forgotten. Someone forgotten. Not so much a memory but a nagging "the damn thing keeps popping into my head and I keep trying to remember but to no avail" kinda thing. All the while, it was right here buried in the archives of this blog - posted almost two years ago in June of 2008.

Yesterday, I Googled for almost an hour - "photographer who illustrates large quantities" ... "photographs that conceptualize large values" ... and many variations ... illustrative ... photograph/s/er/y ... "how much in a millon/billion/trillion?".

I was beginning to get frustrated, drawing upon nothing, not getting big numbers, not getting any meaningful returns in my searches. I almost gave up. (I wish I could remember the successful search string, but I can't now.)

I found the post from before a few minutes ago - on whim entering his name to search my blog. And there it was. Chris Jordan.

Chris Jordan. A UT [University of Texas] alum - UT, right here in Austin. Small world.

So Chris is an activist artist. Or activist photographer. Or activist/artist/photographer. He lets the image tell the story. He lets the viewer begin to get their head around the numbers that his images represent. The numbers they represent, and the world issue that they represent.

In this case, his 2009 work titled "E Pluribus Unum" is a five story high (I would say 4 stories) 45 foot x 45 foot mandala. That's 13.7 meters x 13.7 meters. The lines of the mandala are actually the names of 1,000,000 [one million] "organizations around the world that are devoted to peace, environmental stewardship, social justice, and the preservation of diverse and indigenous culture". In 10 point font.

If you were able to cut out all the names and lay them end to end, they would stretch 27 miles, or 142,560 feet or 43km. In 10 point font.

Lots of organizations - the total number is unknown. Jordan's work is based on Paul Hawken's estimation [in his book "Blessed Unrest" on the "movement movement"] that there are between one million and two million such organizations. Paul Hawken is named as a collaborator on the piece.

Chris Jordan is prolific. The TED talk I posted two years ago in 2008 was titled "Picturing Excess", and is based, I think, on his project "Running the Numbers :: An American Self-Portrait".

He came out with "Running the Numbers II :: Portraits of Global Mass Culture" in 2009. He has one from 2005 on Hurricane Katrina's aftermath titled "In Katrina's Wake :: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster". And "Intolerable Beauty :: Portraits of American Mass Consumption 2003-2005".

They are all on his website at www.chrisjordan.com. I would have given the individual links to each work, but his website is not set up that way. You'll have to go clicking and reading and viewing on your own.

The post I did before was on his TED Talk - the "Picturing Excess" one. I included this quote which I lifted from the lecture:

"I have this fear that we aren't feeling enough in our culture today . There is this kind of anesthesia in America at the moment. We've lost our sense of outrage, our anger, and our grief about what is going on in our culture right now, what is going on in our country, the atrocities that are going on in our names around the world....they've gone missing, these feelings have gone missing..." [Chris Jordan]

Here it is - from February of 2008:






Be sure to check out his website and look at the all of the "Running the Numbers" works.

Here is the E Pluribus Unum work:


























E pluribus unum. We are many, but we are one. Many peoples. Many nations. Many beliefs. Many forms of governance. We are one with the earth, and we have only one earth.

Until we start acting like it, acting like we have to take care of this planet we all live on - until we do that - we're in trouble. Once we do that, well, that's when the hard work begins.

Have a great Sunday y'all.

On Sunday :: The Pope condemns love of money and power

I get the part about money and power, but he also says "...even man's thirst for knowledge has diverted him from his true destiny..."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26677884/

On Sunday :: Graphic Starvation

You may have noticed that I keep rolling the prior post forward each Sunday. The thought came to me that I should use Sunday, and my "On Sunday" thread, to post something spiritual or humanitarian. I was raised in the Episcopal church/ideology - which is also known as Anglican Catholic, versus Roman Catholic. I drifted away from going to church in my high school years - drifted away from organized religion in general. I was married in the church (the first time), but insisted the priest strike the language that "we were sinners, and not worthy to kneel at the altar of the Lord..." - something to that effect - from the ceremony.

So, this On Sunday theme is not intended to be "preachy". It is something I am doing more for myself - to bring my spiritual and humanitarian sides to a higher level in my life - and sharing it on my blog in the process.

Back to this post, the prior post that is, "On Sunday :: A Matter of Perspectives". I think I originally posted it three weeks ago. The concept came to me to show photos, with no words, photos of space and this delicate blue marble that we live on. Just to get us to think about our place in the universe. Then it came to me to also have a photo that represented poverty and starvation. The grandeur and beauty of the universe, the magnificence and opulence of human endeavor, countered with the terrible ugliness of some life experience on this earth. I naturally went straight to flickr to do a search.

The last photo is the one that I chose, because it represented for me, in the most graphic way, the visual image of starvation. Only one person, Kendalee, commented and verbally made the connection I was trying to achieve graphically - literally, and literally. A graphic depiction of a graphic situation for one innocent child on this earth. Kendalee said that we, as humans, as a global society, "are capable of such magnificence and yet such indifference" at the same time.

Before seeing this photo, I used to believe that starvation was a necessary evil. Mother nature in her worst incarnation - controlling the human population. High birth rate - drought - not enough food - then people will starve. Now I believe that with so much money flowing around the third world, so much of it being diverted to corrupt government officials, so much food being produced, that no single individual on the planet should ever go hungry. I often wonder if foreign aid (for food or other uses) from the world powers, from the world bank, from the IMF, ever ends up back in the U.S. - buying a swimming pool or a Beemer or putting a kid through college - for someone in America with the "right" connections. Now that would be a true travesty. There is always talk of "protecting American interests". If there were a way to profit from ending starvation, perhaps things would be different. Profit. Cash. Spoils. Does it always have to be about money?

I ask that you take a closer look at the photo - the last one. Apparently, the photographer who took it was so effected by the image, the image in real life, that he took his own life. The image shows an emaciated child dying in a field, with a bird of carrion looking on. The child appears to be between the ages of 2 and 6, but it's hard to tell with starvation and malnourishment. The photo is tagged on flickr with "Sudan".

Look at the photo and ponder how this child came to be in the field. Did she (could be a little boy, but who knows...) crawl off to die on her own? Did a parent or relative place her there to die? Perhaps an aid worker, with no other option, carried her and laid her there to die. She's just laying there, too weak to even support herself upright, or roll over on her back. Perhaps she is trying shield herself from the inevitable when the bird may begin to peck at her while she is still alive and breathing. Perhaps she has seen her friends die this way, and knows what is coming. At this point, is she hours away from death? Or days?

I know it's all pretty overwhelming and graphic and painful to ponder this scene. It is for me, as I sit here with tears streaming down my face. It's too much for me to bear. It's too much for all of us to bear. I think that's why we avoid thinking about it. That's why our media shows us the latest news on Britney Spears and not starvation in Africa or elsewhere in the world.

All I know is this - no human being should ever have to endure what this child did - and thousands like her. It's morally reprehensible for this to be occurring, right now, on our planet.

I have written to my sister, who lives in Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia with her family to find out a good aid program/charity to donate to. I'm going to find one or two to start donating regularly to. Right now that's all I can do for my part. I'll let you know what I find out about a charity/cause.

This is my new mantra: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem..."

On Sunday :: A matter of perspectives