Does size matter? Ask Chris Jordan
Since I am currently on a ship slowly steaming across the vast azure void of the Pacific Ocean, it seems appropriate to discuss an artist that specializes in not only environmental conservation messages, but in a medium that calls our attention to the size and scale of the challenges that have beset our planet.
Chris Jordan is a Seattle-based artist who has both an unrivaled determination and an uncanny ability to tackle some of the largest problems in the world – and I mean that quite literally. Jordan excels at confronting issues that threaten our very survival, but are simply too large for us to easily understand. One of the ironic cruelties of ocean conservation is the fact that the problems facing us are so astoundingly immense that we simply lack the brain power to truly comprehend them. When talking about pollution, overfishing, and climate change, we routinely speak in numbers so large that we are unable to construct a mental picture that reflects the truth.
For example, consider the case of the world’s largest food fishery, Alaska pollock. For the last several years, the total landings of Alaska pollock have roughly averaged around 1.5 million tons. 1.5 million tons certainly seems like a huge number — but what does it look like? How many fish is that, exactly? How many freezers would that fill? How many people does that feed? How many football stadiums could we bury under frozen pollock fillets? The number is simply so large that we cannot grasp the actual amount of biomass in question. This lack of understanding stymies our ability to understand the impacts of our actions on the health of our planet.
"Gyre" (photograph)
Chris Jordan’s talent lies not just in his ability to translate the incomprehensibly large into the understandably small, but to do so in a way that actually enhances the gravitas of the subject matter. One area in which he has seemingly achieved the impossible is in the case of the North Pacific gyre, home of the litter-strewn waters known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” or “trash vortex.” When we discuss the gyre and its lamentable petro-saturated state, it becomes difficult to truly grasp the dimensions of the problem for the simple reason that it is so staggeringly large. We can say something like “twice the size of Texas,” but how does one truly visualize that expanse? What will it take to truly drive home the gargantuan scope of the trash vortex and the looming challenge that it represents?
Close-up of "Gyre": top of Mt. Fuji
Jordan attacked the problem head on by creating his awe-inspiring “Gyre”: a mosaic of discarded, waterlogged plastic that he has painstakingly arranged to mimic Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Kanagawa,” which is unequivocally one of the most well-known seascapes in the history of mankind. Jordan’s piece measures only nine feet by twelve feet, yet somehow manages to convey the immense scale of the trash vortex, which is nearly the size of the continental United States. The close-up shots reveal the millions of pieces of plastic that have been co-opted into this mammoth task. His use of actual flotsam and jetsam taken from the sea itself to create such an iconic encapsulation of the ocean is a stroke of genius — the viewer cannot help but imagine the foreboding reality of a sea composed entirely of plastic.
"Shark teeth" (photograph)
Jordan has also weighed in on the abominable practice of shark finning and the hellacious scope of the industry’s shark-slaughtering machine. His 2009 photograph “Shark teeth” showcases an artfully arranged collection of fossilized shark teeth ranging from off-white and beige to dusky blue and dark grey. The original piece measures 64″ by 94″ and is based on a watercolor by artist Sarah Waller. There are 270,000 teeth in the collage – one tooth for each shark that is killed by the global finning fleet every single day.
Jordan’s juxtaposition of stratospheric mega-imagery with close-ups of minute detail smacks the viewer with two difference senses of awe: the jaw drops upon perceiving the abyssal magnitude of the work, while the eyes squint and forehead wrinkles in disbelief at its pseudo-molecular intricacy. He accomplishes the same task on behalf of one of the world’s most beleaguered fish with “Tuna,” a photographic marvel detailing 20,500 tuna — the average number of tuna captured from the world’s oceans every fifteen minutes.
"Tuna" (photograph)
Jordan proves through his relentless drive, his attention to detail, and his willingness to confront issues beyond the scope of human imagination that we are truly an omnipotent race. We have created these problems for ourselves, but however massive they have become, however long they have festered, whether spiraling outward in plastic ripples across the face of the deep or tearing into it with greed-driven claws, it is within out power to understand them – and with that understanding will come one inevitable conclusion: we can, and we must, save the ocean.
Tags: Alaska, art, chris, chris jordan, collage, gyre, jordan, north pacific, photograph, photography, plastic, pollock, sarah waller, seattle, shark, sushi, teeth, tooth, tuna, vortex
I’m not usually the kind of person that would look at a scrap piece of wood too closely. It wouldn’t catch my attention, and even if it did, I doubt I’d see more than its potential utility in construction or value to a beach bonfire.
Of course, that changed after I met Adeleine Daysor.
Daysor, 28, is a relatively new presence in the US art scene, having only recently arrived here from her home country of Singapore. She uses pieces of scrap wood to create abstract sculptures that are largely open to interpretation, and then marries them to food. It’s an odd relationship, and one that I didn’t fully understand at first, but have come to genuinely appreciate. The fact is, with Daysor’s art, the sculpture is really not the point at all.
Daysor gravitated to food imagery in her work because it was a way to transcend cultural differences. Even though food around the world is different, everyone in every country does have to eat. As such, there is no culture without food, nor is a there food without culture.
"Wood-crab study" (watercolor on paper)
When Daysor narrowed her focus from a broad spectrum of culinary interpretation to a more precise investigation of sushi and seafood, she was reacting to the materials she encountered rather than attempting to manifest an image that had already developed in her mind. The pieces of wood that later would become the physical presence of her pieces imposed themselves upon her imagination, rather than the other way around. What makes Daysor unique is that she strives to allow her viewers this same opportunity.
“I saw a crab in this block of wood, but someone else may see something different,” Daysor explains to me, “but not if I place my watercolor of the crab directly next to the wood block. Then it’s a crab to everyone.” This kind of orchestration, Daysor claims, leaves no space for art.
"Is Everything on a plate, food? Is Everything on Rice, Sushi? Is Everything on a hook, Fish?" (scrap wood and cooked rice)
This is one of the most interesting aspects of Daysor’s work. She does not consider her sculpture, watercolor, or mixed media to be her art in its final sense. Rather, the products of her effort are the images and emotions that the physical props conjure in an observer’s mind. This approach lends itself to a feeling of fluidity and open-endedness that is often missing from the work of many artists. Daysor seems to view the pieces she creates as stepping stones in a longer path of the viewer’s understanding or realization. “A lot of what I’m dealing with is the history of items, objects, things,” she says. “I put them together in different combinations that become an object, and that object starts its own history. Objects are like culture, they evolve and change, but there’s always an origin, and I want people to think about that.”
"Afternoon Tea" (mixed media)
Daysor’s shows are interactive events. They combine a smattering of actual, edible food with her sculptures and paintings, all of which depictions of food in various degrees of abstraction. With little or no explanation given, Daysor’s show is similar to a zen initiate’s first taste of koan meditation. In her effort to create fertile ground for personal reflection and interpretation, Daysor offers no guidance as to how the pieces should be approached or interpreted. The audience is immediately confronted with a pronounced sense of insecurity.
There are paintings on the wall, but are they related to the sculptures on the pedestals? If so, why aren’t they displayed together? Not to mention — there is an abundance of edible food mixed in with the artwork, but is it supposed to be eaten? Is the food being wasted? What would happen if I ate it?
"Salmon Log Cake" (mixed media)
Daysor smiles when I ask her about this. “The first time the salmon log cake [a sculpture that flanks slices of real salmon with two pieces of wood that masquerade as salmon] was displayed, I offered it to be eaten, and people ate it. Second time, I didn’t say no but didn’t say yes either, and no one ate it.” She pauses for a moment before adding, “I think they didn’t eat it because the real food next to the constructed objects puts food outside its natural context. Also, it’s playing with the rules – people don’t know if they can eat it, or should eat it, etc.”
Daysor allows these questions to bloom in the minds of her viewers and to play themselves out in a natural progression. Sometimes the food in her shows is consumed, sometimes it’s not. To Daysor, this is the core of her art. Without free interpretation and participation to give depth to the piece, the work is merely two-dimensional.
"Wood-prawn study" (watercolor on paper)
To me, Daysor’s work echoes one of the most fascinating aspects of sushi, seafood, and the ocean in general: the sense of limitless potential and possibility. The monsters that coil about the edges of ancient mariner’s maps were spawned from the same place that Daysor is urging her viewers to return to. The reflective sheen atop the world’s oceans provides an optimal setting to nurture the imagination. What incredible creatures and undiscovered treasures lie beneath the waves?
Daysor’s work encourages us to believe in the wondrous nature of our world. In order to ignite a passion for the ocean, one must truly believe in its magnificence. The depth and mystery of the ocean is indeed indescribable, but we have largely allowed this awe to be supplanted by more pedestrian interpretations of the ocean (like fish sticks, for example.)
What do you see?
It doesn’t matter if I see the same thing that you see in a given piece of wood or a passing cloud. What matters is that we open ourselves to whatever blossoms in our imagination. I am not satisfied with the idea that the entire world will be force-fed a single interpretation of our ocean. As I said — that way lies fish sticks.
We need our passion, our hope, and our powers of imagination all operating at full capacity if we are to save our planet. We need the ability to visualize an answer, to work together, and to believe in ourselves. We have to challenge the paradigm that got us into this mess, and anyone that can use a forlorn, castaway piece of wood to fuel their creativity is on the right track.
Tags: adeleine, adeleine daysor, art, crab, culture, daysor, display, fish sticks, food, interactive, rice, salmon, scrap, sculpture, singapore, sushi, watercolor, wood
Nice to meat you
One of the little joys of the sushi dining experience is the rapport that one builds with the chef. Unique among major North American cuisines, sushi offers a customer the opportunity to dine in a face-to-face setting with those behind the sushi bar. In addition to watching the masterful knife-play that is involved with the proper preparation of one’s mixed sashimi plate or order of kohada nigiri, it affords us an all-too-uncommon experience in modern America: the chance to get to know the person who is feeding us.
Closed kitchen
Consider our other restaurant dining options. It is exceedingly rare to find oneself in a non-Japanese eating establishment wherein one has the choice to sit directly before the executive chef and interact with him (over 95% of sushi chefs in the United States are men… but that’s the subject of a different post) throughout the meal. Try to find a French restaurant where the chef prepares your coq au vin tableside, or a California fusion joint that seats you next to the line cook so you can chat while he sets you up with your steamed halibut with Napa cabbage and mango salsa.
Only in the sushi world are we treated to this intimate experience of dining in the company of the chef. The irony of this situation, however, is that even though sushi diners have the opportunity to connect with the architect of the dishes they enjoy, they are often more removed than ever from the real star of the show — the fish itself.
Sushi does not typically present itself to us as fish. When it arrives at the table, it has been artfully sliced and diced, festooned with ornamental seaweeds and vegetables, and cradled by softly interwoven granules of rice. It’s a magnificent creation: a delightful dining experience that enraptures the eyes as well as the taste buds… but at what cost? Is there a price to pay for perfection in presentation?
Possibly.
I've got a secret
The oceans are under threat from overfishing, pollution and trash dumping, bottom trawling, and more. One of the reasons that these practices are allowed to continue is that the realm of the aquatic is separated from our perception by our inability of human vision to pierce the waves. What lies beneath the ocean’s surface is nothing as much as a deep and fascinating mystery. If we could bear quotidian witness to the damage wrought by our actions, would we still behave this way?
No one here but us flowers
It is difficult for us to offer fish the respect they deserve when we are unable to perceive them as living, breathing animals that have unique characteristics and habits, that form an integral part of an ecosystem that we are only just beginning to comprehend. In the context of sushi, these fish — many of which have never been seen by the vast majority of Americans in any form other than sliced to ribbons — are not presented as animals, but rather as an assortment of delectable morsels in a culinary tapestry woven together for our sensual pleasure.
So how do we surmount this obstacle? Part of saving the oceans is building awareness of the impacts of our choices, so how can we enjoy sushi while maintaining a connection to the fish that gave its life for our meal?
The secret is right in front of us.
Stay tuned.
Tags: art, chef, cuisine, culture, eye, itadakimsu, kitchen, kohada, presentation, respect, sushi, sushi bar, sushi chef
Alicia Escott: Artist, visionary, and trash collector
Most artists that use sushi imagery have purposefully selected the cuisine as something they want to incorporate into their artwork. Something unique to sushi piqued their interest and compelled them to explore it from their own unique perspective. Alicia Escott, however, began her interaction with the sushi world completely through happenstance.
A graduate of the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago, Escott began her art career as a plein air painter, but soon found herself unsatisfied. An activist at heart, Escott painted her pieces with an environmentalist bent, but didn’t feel that her viewers were interpreting it that way. Frustrated by this, Escott all but abandoned her painting and moved to San Francisco, intending to turn her back on her artistic side in favor of developing a career in sustainable business. This was not to be, however – perhaps the fates weren’t about to allow such a talented artist to rob us of a gift that we so desperately needed.
Looking for work and struggling to make ends meet, Escott found herself working at a grocery store that happened to house a sushi counter. At the end of the day, the sushi that hadn’t been sold was distributed to hungry workers or thrown out. This is the moment where Escott came face-to-face with her future medium – discarded plastic.
"Pitch" (oil on plastic)
Escott saw potential in incorporating this cast-off material into her work, and began to create energetic seascapes and vibrant animal imagery as her paint splayed across the matte black plastic cradle of someone’s rainbow roll. Over time, Escott hit her stride and her work blossomed, belting out undeniable messages about the not-so-disposable nature of all that which we dismiss as “disposable.” Her work drives home the staggering reality of the truth behind grocery sushi packaging: the fact that a hungry Safeway patron’s nigiri combo has a life expectancy of about 20 minutes, while the container holding it – whose ostensible purpose was solely to custodian the fish and rice to their grisly end – will likely persist for tens of thousands of years.
- “A New Day” (oil on plastic)
Escott has utilized a number of different techniques in her work, including oils, pencil, and ink. Many of her pieces are composed on single pieces of plastic, while others, like her mind-boggling “A New Day,” are arranged on large grids — in this case, a rising sun and seascape splashing across thirty discarded sushi containers.
According to Escott, sushi has achieved an important place in her consciousness. “Fish really exemplify what I’m trying to communicate,” she says. “Consumers don’t know where they’re from, how they got here, or where they go… just like plastic.”
"Drawing of the last wild California grizzly bear. 'Spotted several times in 1923 in Sequoia National Park and then never seen again.' Drawn on plastic mattress bags from Cisco Home for Sustainable Living. 'Handcrafted Furniture made in LA since 1992.' This drawing is slowly fading into obscurity. The plastic is currently not locally recyclable." (ink on plastic)
That’s not to say that Escott’s expertise is limited to this little wasabi-and-soy universe. She has a repertoire that draws on plastic in a multitude of forms, from discarded plastic bags and disposable containers to entire heavy-duty plastic sheets, every scrap of which was thrown away by its original owner.
In fact, packaging in all forms, even beyond the tangible, intrigue her and draw from her imagination a myriad of poignant and groundbreaking pieces. “Our whole lives are packaged,” Escott laments. “Even a national park is ‘packaged’ in a way to make it accessible and appreciable… plastic is the epitome of this, you know? It’s at once the most hygienic and the most ‘dirty’ thing.”
"Salmon roll" (ink on plastic)
To express her perspective on the concepts of waste and packaging from a broader sense, Escott has created both massive and minuscule works, dwelling on detail and, most importantly, the ironic connection between her imagery and her material. She pours countless hours of work into the artistic amelioration of items that most people would leave crushed and forgotten in a garbage can or on a city sidewalk. In one of her pieces, several meticulously hand-rendered salmon struggle up a river that rushes along the creases of a crushed, discarded sushi lid. The plastic still bears a faded sticker that reads: “Salmon roll.” The salmon are frozen in time, rolling through whitewater that has been superimposed on the molted shell of one of their long-eaten relatives – a fish that, through the dubious miracle of plastic, has been frozen in time as well.
"Untitled" (ink on plastic)
The impact of this juxtaposition is redoubled by Escott’s masterful ability to convey a critical message: this plastic waste is a tremendous threat to the health of oceanic ecosystems. As discarded plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, it forms “nurdles” – tiny particles that are invisible to the naked eye but that have the potential to persist in our environment for thousands of years. Nurdles find their way into streams and rivers which bear then onward until they reach the ocean. These microscopic poison pellets then saturate our waters and are subsequently devoured by unsuspecting filter-feeders. Countless animals are killed by nurdles ever year, starving to death, unable to fit any digestible food into their full stomachs. They are packed to the gills, as it were, with plastic.
When confronted about the true purpose of her work, Escott gets a impish look and the corner of her mouth curls up mischeviously. “I want to confuse the viewer,” she confesses. “I want to bring home this cognitive dissonance between the disposable and the perpetual. We at once accept these containers as ‘disposable,’ but at the same time, we’re aware that they will be around for thousands of years.”
Well, I’m certainly confused. As I write this, I’m about 30,000 feet above the Nevada desert, and I’ve just finished eating. My food was, predictably, encased in a black-and-clear disposable plastic service, #1 PET plastic on #6 polystyrene, accompanied by the ubiquitous clear plastic airline cup. But now that I’m finished with my meal, what do I do with the plastic? I ponder my situation, turning the problem over and over in my head. Given the continual failure among domestic airlines to incorporate recycling programs into their policies, anything I hand to the flight attendant for disposal is a strong candidate for nurdle-dom. So how can I ensure that this anachronistic reminder of a fruit and cheese plate that I barely tasted doesn’t contribute to the demise of our planet? How can I put the incredible longevity and persistence of my food’s erstwhile shield to good use?
I guess I’ll give it to Alicia.
Tags: a new day, alicia, art, bear, chicago, culture, escott, foods, grocery, ink, lid, nurdle, oil, pencil, PET, pitch, plastic, plein air, polystyrene, roll, safeway, salmon, san francisco, whole
A simple truth of sushi is that it tends to involve fish. A second simple truth is that, before they were nigiri or maki, these fish were living, breathing creatures. Strangely, this latter axiom seems to pass unnoticed all too often.
Luckily, we have Gayle to remind us.
The gifted and lovely Gayle Wheatley.
Gayle Wheatley is a well-known artist based in the Los Angeles area. She is supremely talented and works in an impressive array of media, including oil on canvas, illustration, and graphic design. Her work is displayed in numerous exhibitions and galleries around the world, and much of it has been snapped up by art collectors who lamentably discovered her before I did.
Gayle spent two years living in Japan, and I’m guessing that this is at least part of what has inspired her to use sushi imagery in her work. What interests me about Gayle’s art is her uncanny ability to depict the connection between sushi and life.
I often find myself waxing on ad naseum about this subject: fish are alive. Until they die, that is. Or we kill them.
This in itself isn’t a problem for me; rather, I’m concerned by the dubious understanding that we have of this connection on a subconscious level. Consciously, sure, we know the sashimi on our plate is fish… but do we stop and think about how it was a fish, as well?
- We are hamachi.
Picture this: you walk into your favorite sushi restaurant. You order hamachi. You wait a few minutes, maybe savoring a steaming cup of green tea or sipping Sapporo from a pilsner glass. A moment passes and a modest but smiling server approaches your table, places a small wooden block before you, and vanishes. On the block, resting softly on a shizo leaf, are two loosely-molded lumps of rice topped with a couple of pieces of a rich, cream-colored flesh with light veins of red and pink streaking through it. It is a beautiful dish, rich in its simplicity, evoking thoughts of freshness, purity, and delight.
What it doesn’t make us think of is a fish.
- But I was hamachi first.
Hamachi is a staple in the US sushi industry, but it is exceedingly rare in other sectors of our seafood landscape. You won’t find hamachi at your local Safeway, WalMart, or Kroger; nor will you see one resting in the crushed ice of a high-end independent urban seafood market. In fact, outside of a sushi bar, most Americans will never encounter a hamachi at all.
Which means most sushi-goers have no idea what the living fish actually looks like.
I find that it’s difficult to connect with something of which I have no tangible or visual appreciation, and fish are no exception. These gaps between us and the animals that we consume allow us to feed upon them with less regard for what they once were. Harmful fishing practices, filthy farming conditions, and even the ugly faces and off-putting monikers of particular fish are hidden to foster our ability to purchase in blissful ignorance at the point of sale. Why else would merchants decide to change the name of the Patagonian toothfish to the Chilean seabass? Or market the slimehead as “orange roughy”?
(Speaking of that, have you ever seen a whole, head-on Chilean seabass displayed in a fish counter? No? Maybe it’s because they look like this.)
This is a point of concern for me. In my view, it is missing the point to work towards sustainability in the fish industry if we do not reconcile our eating habits with the fact that fish are living creatures, not an amorphous commodity. As long as we continue to to treat these animals as less than that (farming them in unsuitable conditions, filling them with drugs and dyes, devastating their habitat with destructive fishing gear, etc.), we will continually find ourselves struggling to reach sustainability.
Gayle has managed to use sushi to portray these undersea organisms as the vivacious, mysterious, beating-heart marvels that they are. Her vibrant, almost monstrous depictions of the animals “behind the sushi” strikes a chord with me. Salmon roe sport teeth, similar to those they would have developed had they been allowed to hatch and mature. A clutch of eels writhe and squirm against a nori yoke, struggling mightily to escape a hackneyed kabeyaki fate. Cold- or warm-blooded, exo- or endo-skeletal, shelled or scaled, pelagic or benthic… it makes no difference. Gayle’s work ably demonstrates that all of the ocean’s inhabitants merit our reverence, as does the amazingly complex ecosystem that they compose.
It’s not about refusing to eat fish. It’s about bringing our awareness of what we are actually eating to the table. Once the information is present, we can make defensible decisions as to what is right for us as individuals. We can clearly delineate for ourselves what we will and will not consume. This kind of consumption works in harmony with our own personal ethics, and I promise, fish tastes so much better that way.
Tags: amberjack, art, eel, gayle, gayle wheatley, hamachi, ikura, illustrations, maguro, octopus, salmon, salmon roe, sushi, Sushi culture, tako, tuna, unagi, wheatley
That's me, being a sushi fanatic.
By this time, I think it has become pretty clear that I’m a bit of a sushi fanatic. I really dig the stuff… to the degree where I spend a great deal of my day blogging about it to an audience which may or may not even exist. I suppose that’s saying something about my life (or lack thereof), but hey, we’ve all got our jobs to do. This one is mine.
Anyhow, sushi. Yeah, I’m a fan. And as much as I enjoy relishing the experience of a sushi meal, it’s not just the cuisine itself that fascinates me. Fish and rice aside, the culture(s) of sushi is, in itself, a marvelously captivating subject, and in my view, one which is particularly interesting when examined through the lens of sustainability.
There is no singular sushi culture. The cuisine has been interpreted in a myriad of ways, each with its own proprietary traditions and norms. From “traditional” edomae sushi culture in Japan to the futuristic conveyor-belt hamachi and unagi delivery systems employed in urban centers around the globe, the concept of sushi has mutated and transcended itself in countless ways.
One of the most interesting aspects of the diffusion of sushi into global popular culture is the emergence of “sushi art.” Dozens, maybe hundreds, of spectacularly talented artists have begun to incorporate sushi into their work. Mediums as varied as concrete sculpture, watercolors, and even discarded plastic have been used by these visionaries to evoke images of sashimi, maki, and more.
This upcoming series of blog entries will be an exploration of the use of sushi as an artistic theme, and will focus on how this artwork can be interpreted from an environmental perspective. It is meant to provoke a discussion on these themes, so please, comment freely.
Links to subsequent installments:
Part 1: Fish, Life, and Gayle Wheatley (May 2, 2009)
Part 2: The Plastic World of Alicia Escott (June 2, 2009)
Tags: art, culture, painting, plastic, Sushi culture, watercolor
