Running the Numbers

An American Self-Portrait by Chris Jordan

This series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 125,000 one-hundred dollar bills ($12.5 million), the amount our government spends every hour on the war in Iraq. and so on.

Handguns, 2007 Digital C print, 72x94"

Depicts 29,569 handguns, equal to the number of gun-related deaths in the US in 2004.

Handguns(Detail at actual size), 2007 Digital C print, 72x94"

Cans Seurat, 2007,

Digital C print, 72x110"

Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

Detail at actual size: