William Sockness: Packaged For Your Convenience

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”22878″ alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”22873″ alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”22874″ alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”22875″ alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”22876″ alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”22877″ alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Packaged For Your Convenience is a series of photographs exploring our unsustainable dependence on plastic. Through the creation of highly textured and detailed images, I wanted to visually probe our pervasive use of plastic. My work and research originally set out to highlight the outlandish price of bottled water and its intersection with poverty and access to clean tap water. Because tap water costs less than a cent per gallon out of the tap, I was shocked to learn that the production of disposable plastic bottles was nearly just as cheap, costing pennies per container. As I began to photograph some of the plastics that litter our everyday environment, I became more focused on the subconscious burden of plastic as a means of encasing nearly all consumer products, wrapping everything from fruit to phone chargers in layers of unnecessary plastic. The companies producing these products have managed to shift the psychological burden of recycling and blame onto the consumer, rather than the people that are actually perpetuating these harmful practices. Until we hold these corporations accountable, rather than individual consumers, nothing will change. In an era increasingly defined by climate change and subsequent displacement, the price we pay as a nation is too great, both financially and environmentally. A lack of action and accountability is what corporations continue to bank on, allowing for the continued denial of their power and ability to change our relationship with plastic.

Packaged For Your Convenience
2020
Digital photographs

What’s Our Safe Word?
2020
Digital photograph

Do not consume if seal is broken
2020
Digital photograph

Pure enjoyment ® (Aquafina)
2020
Digital photograph

Plastic Floats
2020
Digital photograph

Pure life begins now ® (Nestle)
2020
Digital photograph

The price we pay
2020
Digital photograph

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