Midway » ocean pollution

MIDWAY V – Chris Jordan checks in from Honolulu

Jan Vozenilek — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:59:26 +0000

MIDWAY IV – A dream of a dying Albatross

Jan Vozenilek — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:20:23 +0000

Here is a short clip from our most recent trip to Midway. It combines footage of a dying albatross with a scene of a baby fairy tern being fed and protected by its mother. We call it “A Dream of a Dying Albatross (Return to the Mother).” The singer is Baaba Maal, from the “One Giant Leap” album; much love to him and his peeps (and BTW that whole album is killer; check it out if you don’t have it already).

We will be returning to Midway again in February 2012 to film and witness hundreds of thousands of albatross babies hatching from their eggs, which our friends on the island say is one of the most beautiful sights on planet Earth. Our film is progressing well, with several exciting announcements coming soon. Stay tuned! ~Chris Jordan

MIDWAY – film trailer

Jan Vozenilek — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 04:50:56 +0000

Our new film trailer is now live. You can also view it in high resolution on our new website: www.MidwayFilm.com

MIDWAY JOURNEY III – Chris Jordan final day summary

Jan Vozenilek — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:28:46 +0000

Chris Jordan checks in on the eve of our last day on Midway Island before our departure.

MIDWAY JOURNEY III – Open Hearts, Broken Hearts

Jan Vozenilek — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:03:04 +0000

It’s the mid-point of our current journey and Chris Jordan checks in from an albatross-covered field on Midway Atoll to share the abundant sights and sounds, as well as the realization that all albatross chicks here likely have plastic in their bellies.

MIDWAY JOURNEY III – Chris Jordan checks in

Jan Vozenilek — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 09:31:31 +0000

Artist Chris Jordan checks in from Midway Island as he discovers a tiny plastic-filled albatross chick who died in his nest.

MIDWAY

Jan Vozenilek — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:41:53 +0000

We are at a mid-way place. On a remote and isolated island in the middle of the Pacific, twelve-hundred miles northwest of Hawaii.

This is a moment in time, a chance to witness and understand our role in an astonishing environmental tragedy. This is a place that provides context. Here, reflected in the beauty of the Albatross, is an unfolding horror. Yet it is a horror in which we see our own lives, a snapshot of our impact on the planet that challenges us to consider how to move forward.

Join us, on a breathtaking and emotional journey, into the heart of the Pacific, and into the heart of ourselves.

Production of the feature film “MIDWAY” continues through 2012.

Cinematography by Jan Vozenilek and Joe Schweers

Click here to view the trailer in HD
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GudEuDTrSLU&hd=1

MIDWAY JOURNEY – Education Outreach

Jan Vozenilek — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:07:39 +0000

Chris Jordan and Jan Vozenilek share their experiences on Midway with students at Penticton Secondary School in British Columbia – Canada, and announce that Emily Chartrand, a grade 11 student, will be joining the expedition on their next journey to Midway Atoll in March 2011.

Working with Emily, the Midway Team is expanding its education outreach program, to connect with high school students in Canada and the United States. Starting on Sunday March 20th, Emily will be providing daily reports on her blog:

http://emilysmidwayjourney.blogspot.com/

Video by: CHBC – Global TV – Kelowna, BC
Reporter: April Lawrence

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – First Flight

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:40:56 +0000

Cinematographer Joe Schweers offers a lyrical portrait of the fledgling albatrosses as they respond to their instincts and the wind.

Filmed and edited by Joe Schweers
Narrated by Chris Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Bottle Caps

Jan Vozenilek — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:17:00 +0000

John Klavitter, the acting manager of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife refuge has spent almost 9 years on Midway Island. In this short film, he not only takes a closer look inside one of the dead chicks, but also shares his personal views and connection to the Albatross.

Camera and editing: Jan Vozenilek
Sound: Joe Schweers
Music: Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Kaleidoscope, a poem by Victoria Sloan Jordan

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:16:28 +0000

In this poetic offering, a plastic filled bird carcass becomes a symbol for awakening.

Filmed and edited by Jan Vozenilek

Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Harbor Trap

Jan Vozenilek — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 07:02:43 +0000

Young albatrosses making their first foray out to sea can become waterlogged and exhausted, drifting back to the beach to rest and dry out. This disturbing video shows the plight of those unlucky enough to become trapped by the high metal retaining walls in Midway’s harbor. The doomed birds drown in an entanglement of dead birds and plastic trash.

Filmed and edited by Jan Vozenilek
Narrated by Chris Jordan
Written by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

Exact Location on BlooSee

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food III – Looking into the Mirror

Chris Jordan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:36:51 +0000

Chris Jordan peels back the ribcage of a decaying albatross chick to reveal yet another belly-cargo of plastic. The ever present bottle cap is joined by a ballpoint pen cap, fishing float, and other assorted plastic junk from the human world that albatrosses forage from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, mistaking it for food.

Video by Jan Vozenilek
Written by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food II : Our First Dissection

Victoria Sloan Jordan — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:55:26 +0000

Stomach contents of another dead baby albatross are revealed as Chris Jordan cuts the bird open with scissors from a dissection kit provided by US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Filmed by Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Midway Brushstrokes III

Jan Vozenilek — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:20:09 +0000

Young Laysan Albatrosses look wizened and world-weary in their grizzled down, but they have only just begun to test their wings on the wind and water, and the success of their journey remains uncertain.

Jan Vozenilek captures the presence and vulnerability of the fledgling birds of Midway in this next installment of his Brushstrokes vignettes.

Filmed and edited by: Jan Vozenilek
Written by: Victoria Sloan Jordan
Music by: Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – Junk Food

Jan Vozenilek — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:22:41 +0000

Brace yourself for this short video of the horrifying contents of the stomach of a dead baby albatross on Midway Atoll.

The island will soon be covered with tens of thousands of carcasses like this, as the plastic-filled birds die from starvation, dehydration, and choking.

Video by: Jan Vozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien

MIDWAY JOURNEY II – First Impressions

Chris Jordan — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:38:21 +0000

Dear Friends and Followers of Midway Journey,

Thank you for your patience as we have taken a few days to find our bearings and connect to the Internet. We are astonished and delighted to find ourselves back here again on remote Midway Atoll. The tiny island is now covered with several hundred thousand fledgling albatrosses inhabiting the paths, walkways, roads, meadows, and even the runway.

It’s hard to describe the complex mixture of feelings that arise in the presence of this incredible abundance of wildlife, especially as we are keenly aware of the devastating effects of the plastic that fills the stomachs of a huge percentage of these young birds. One purpose of this leg of our journey is to witness their annual die-off, which will result in thousands of plastic-filled carcasses covering the ground as we saw when we visited here last September.

We’ve already begun to acquaint ourselves with the new stories that this chapter of our journey holds, and we look forward to sharing them with you over the next couple of weeks. Thank you for joining us in this process.

With warm regards from Midway Atoll,

Chris, Victoria, Jan & Joe

Video by: Jan Vozenilek Vimeo.com/JanVozenilek

Music by: Christen Lien itsnotaviolin.com

See the area where this video was filmed on BlooSee’s satellite imagery.

A visit to Cortes Island

Jan Vozenilek — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:44:07 +0000

A walk on the shores of the remote and wild Canadian island of Cortes illustrates that plastic is polluting even the most remote and beautiful corners of our planet.

Midway Journey members Chris Jordan, Manuel Maqueda, Jan Vozenilek and Bill Weaver reunited in May 2010 to attend the Media that Matters conference in Hollyhock, Cortes Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Music by Christen Lien

Video by Jan Vozenilek

Plastic Beach

Manuel Maqueda — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:17:37 +0000

In the Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who was cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity.

A beach cleanup on Midway Atoll made us feel just like Sisyphus.

There are millions of tons of plastics present in our oceans, and these are constantly fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces which are scattered throughout the water column and present, in different densities, throughout all the worlds oceans.

Contrary to what many people believe, there are no visible islands of trash anywhere –even if some areas, the gyres, accumulate higher densities of plastic pollution. In actuality, what is happening is much more complex and scary: our oceans are becoming a planetary soup laced with plastic.

To make thing worse, these tiny pieces of plastic are extremely powerful chemical accumulators for organic persistent pollutants present in ambient sea water such as DDE‘s and PCB‘s. The whole food chain, invertebrates, fish, sea turtles… are eating plastic and /or other animals who have plastic in them. This means that we are. Like the albatrosses on Midway, we carry the garbage patch inside of us.

Cleaning up this mess is not feasible, technically or economically. Even if all the boats in the world were put to the task somehow, the cleanup would not only remove the plastics but also the plankton, which is the base of the food chain, and is responsible for capturing half of the CO2 of our atmosphere and generating half of the oxygen we need to breathe.

But even if this problem was solved too somehow, the amount of plastic that we could capture, at an immense cost, would be a drop in the bucket as compared to the amount that flows into the ocean every day.

No matter how hard we push, in terms of technology or money, the boulder will be rolling back down the hill, throughout eternity, unless we stop putting more plastics into our environment.

The good news is that we can do this. We can do this now. We need to start a social movement that spreads virally and creates a critical mass of concerned citizens who pledge to move away from our disposable habits, and who raise their voice to reject and reverse a throwaway culture that might be profitable, but whose consequences are intolerable.

Video by Jan Vozenilek
Written and narrated by: Manuel Maqueda
Music by Christen Lien www.itsnotaviolin.com

Click here to see a satellite image of the exact location of this video (click on ‘view map’ and zoom all the way in.)

Midway Brushstrokes 2

Manuel Maqueda — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:29:57 +0000

In the midst of the tragedy of plastic pollution on Midway, Jan Vozenilek’s camera tuns, for an instant, to the triumph of life over decay.

During our journey, Jan would occasionally steal away from the group, and wander alone in the island with his camera. The rest of us would wonder where he was, and what kind of footage he would be capturing.

The scenes on Brushstrokes 2 speak of moments of intimacy, where the cinematographer is alone in the field, tuning into the pulse of the land, and letting its natural beauty tell an ancient story of survival and renewal.

In this short video lies a reverence for nature so profound, that our eye has to concentrate on the small details, and peek shyly through blades of grass, lest the direct contemplation of the greatness of it all be overwhelming. As we watch, we feel the emergence of that peculiar sense wonder that is often thought to belong only to childhood. A sense of awe and discovery that we are taught to suppress and forget as we grow up.

As time slows down, and the rays of golden light fall gently on the tortured landscape of Midway, subtle brushstrokes of natural beauty are painted over a canvas too many times torn and blotted by the blindness of man.

Video by Jan Vozenilek. Music by Vanessa LeBourdais.