Andy Yoder: Overboard
24 Oct. 2020 – 6 March 2021
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center
Downtown Brattleboro, Vermont
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Taking the form of a designer sneaker showroom—and reflecting on the aftermath of an incident in which 61,820 Nike Air Jordan 5 sneakers spilled into the Pacific Ocean—Andy Yoder (b. 1957, Ohio)’s Overboard addresses the environmental impact of consumerism through the lens of sneaker culture. The installation-based solo presentation consists of 240 Air Jordan 5 ‘replicas’ made of trash that Yoder, a classically trained sculptor who primarily works with repurposed consumer objects, personally foraged from trash bins in the DC metro area.
The show’s basis, ‘The Great Shoe Spill of 1990,’ occurred when a container ship encountered a storm while crossing the Pacific Ocean, throwing overboard 5 forty-foot containers packed with $7.7 million (in today’s dollars) worth of the much-hyped 1990 Air Jordan 5 sneakers. When the sneakers began washing up on far-apart beaches months later, the incident became the obsession of sneaker enthusiasts and oceanographers alike; sneaker enthusiasts would collect the shoes and attend swap meets to create a pair (there were only 5 colorways), while oceanographers were able to use the uniquely serial numbered objects to conduct groundbreaking studies about ocean currents.
“The issue of how consumer culture affects the environment isn't new,” said Yoder, “but it has become politicized and suffers from message fatigue. Hopefully the visual impact of the exhibition, and the decision to explore things through the lens of sneaker culture in a visually playful manner, will present the issue in a way that is fresh, and as a result more impactful.”
A preview of photo assets is below. See the Dropbox folder linked above to download high-resolution image files. Image reuse must be with credit to Andy Yoder, unless otherwise noted in the file title.
