Randy Olson, Plastic Apocalypse

June 30th – August 3rd, 2018

Opening Reception, Saturday, June 30th,  3:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Artist Talk 4:30 PM – 5:15 PM

Camerawork Gallery (NEW LOCATION!!!!!!!)
301 N. Graham Street, Portland, OR 97227
Located in Lorenzen Conference Center – Legacy Emanuel Medical Center Campus.
New Hours: 9am – 6pm, Monday-Saturday, Sunday, 10am-4pm
Free off street parking available
www.TheCameraworkGallery.org
www.Facebook.com/cameraworkgallery
503-701-5347

Planet or Plastics? Photographer Randy Olson notes, “The photographs in this exhibit are part of a multi-year National Geographic initiative to raise awareness about the global plastic crisis.”

There are millions of slum workers around the world involved in an informal plastic waste industry that is “always hiring.” This third-world “gold rush” to process plastic waste is an economy with no end in sight. With the shale oil boom, companies like Shell, Dow and others are in the early years of gearing up “cracker plants” that “crack” frack-gas-molecules into mostly single-use-plastic for food packaging. Plans are in the works for more and more cracker plants pushing peak plastic production all the way out to the year 2100. Despite growing concern and much discussion in the media this past year, corporations plan for more and more singleuse-plastic in our lives. The planet produced 448 million tons of plastic in 2015 alone — just one year! As much as 6.3 billion tons in total now sits in landfills, in the ocean, or scattered across the landscape of multiple continents. More than 40% of plastics are used just once, and then tossed. Only nine percent of our plastic waste is recycled into other products.

www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/planetorplastic

ABOUT THE ARTIST Randy’s 30+ National Geographic projects have taken him to almost every continent. National Geographic Society published a book of his work in 2011 in their Masters of Photography series. Olson was the Magazine Photographer of the Year in the Pictures of the Year International (POYi) competition, and was also awarded POYi’s Newspaper Photographer of the Year — one of only two photographers to win in
both media in the largest photojournalism contest operating continuously since World War II.

In 2011, Randy founded The Photo Society (thephotosociety.org) that is open to any photographer who has produced a full-length story for National Geographic magazine.

Olson received an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship to support a seven-year project documenting a family with AIDS, and a first place Robert F. Kennedy Award for his story on problems with Section 8 housing. He was also awarded the Nikon Sabbatical grant and a grant from the National Archives to save the Pictures of the Year collection. Randy and his wife, Melissa Farlow, live in Pennsylvania and Oregon.