When environmental causes are taken on by artists, the results can be haunting. This is the case with photographer Chris Jordan. His project, "Midway: Message from the Gyre" is a collection of photographs of deceased birds taken on Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands in the Pacific.

From the artist:

"The detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean.

For me, kneeling over their carcasses is like looking into a macabre mirror. These birds reflect back an appallingly emblematic result of the collective trance of our consumerism and runaway industrial growth. Like the albatross, we first-world humans find ourselves lacking the ability to discern anymore what is nourishing from what is toxic to our lives and our spirits. Choked to death on our waste, the mythical albatross calls upon us to recognize that our greatest challenge lies not out there, but in here."

Jordan is currently working on a film about the project. For more information, please visit his website, chrisjordan.com.