Project Documerica: A Portrait of the 1970s Environmental Movement

Tie-dye jeans, soda can houses, and what Thai Buddhists have to do with American cowboys.

In 1971, as the environmental movement was reaching critical mass, the Environmental Protection Agency hired a slew of freelance photographers to capture the environmental problems, EPA activities and everyday life of the ’70s. For seven years, the 81 photographers traveled around the country, producing what became known as Project Documerica — a fascinating and deeply insightful cultural portrait of one of the most important decades in modern history.

Thirty years later, The U.S. National Archives have digitized more than 15,000 of these photographs and made them publicly available in the Archival Research Catalog, as well as on the National Archives’ impressively excellent Flickr library.

From the booming industrialism to the ripening of hyper-consumerism to nature’s ever-more-timid cameos in daily life, the series captures the beginning of our industry-driven environmental demise — with the earnest lucidity of an era that can’t even begin to imagine what’s to come.

Subsets of the series tackle specific themes and issues — like this striking visual record of the car culture boom, which is a bit like looking at the can-tell-it-will-be-hideous-but-can’t-tell-just-how embryo of Godzilla.

Still, some of the photographs offer a welcome respite from the avalanche of consumerism — like this clever experimental wall construction, using empty soda cans to build housing in New Mexico, which reminds us of the Buddhist bottle temple in Thailand.

You can also browse the archive by state for a broad-reaching look across vastly different locations.

Despite the clumsy site navigation and appalling interface, Project Documerica is a rich and impressive record of the patterns, processes and cultural forces that shaped our current era — dig in.

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Strange Worlds: Miniature Condiment Landscapes

Spicy aliens, furry fields, and how a domestic accident can spark creative genius.

There’s hardly a greater feat of creativity than portraying something ordinary through something mundane, to a cumulative effect of pure whimsy. That’s exactly what 26-year-old artist Matthew Albanese does in his fantastic — literally — Strange World series, incredibly detailed small-scale models of emotive landscapes made out of unusually usual everyday materials.

Tornado made of steel wool, cotton, ground parsley and moss

It all began in 2008 with an appropriately mundane domestic accident.

'Paprika Mars,' the very first landscape Albanese created, made of cinnamon, thyme, chili powder, and charcoal

One day I knocked over a tub of paprika. As I was cleaning up the mess I began to daydream and found I was playing with the paprika more than cleaning it up. I thought it was a great shade of red and it reminded me of Mars. So I figured I would bring Mars to me. I went out and bought 12lb of the pungent spice and created my first landscape – ‘Paprika Mars’. My studio smelled of paprika, but ever since then I have been interested in finding new materials and pushing myself to find out through experimentation what they could represent in my models.

Another Martian landscape, made out of 12 pounds paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, chili powder and charcoal

Through immaculate lighting and meticulous curation of tactile materials — faux fur for grass, cotton wool for clouds, bottle brushes for shrubs — Albanese creates uncannily realistic miniature worlds of wonder.

'Sugarland,' made out of 20 pounds of sugar, jello and corn syrup. Albanese grew the crystals in his studio over the course of two months.

'Burning Room,' made of wood, nylon, plexiglass and purchased dollhouse furniture. The model was actually set on fire to achieve this effect.

Perhaps most remarkable is Albanese’s incredible art of perspective — in less than three feet of length, he manages to evoke a sense of immensity and vastness, transporting you to heart of these whimsical landscapes.

'Aurora Borealis,' made by photographing a beam of colored light against a black curtain to achieve the edge effect, with holes in cork board to create the stars

'Fields, After the Storm,' made out of faux fur, cotton and sifted tile grout, with a shift in white balance to create the lighting effect

Albanese’s work reminds us of Matthew Carden’s Small World series of miniature food landscapes, with a hint of David Trautrimas’ Habitat Machines.

Explore the full Strange World series and let your jaw drop even further with the impressively laborious making-of.

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Fresh Stuff from Michel Gondry

Swarms of shiny happy people and some cinematic magic.

This is the first time in Brain Pickings history we’ve used an exclamation mark — but there’s a new Michel Gondry video out!

This time the maker of cinematic gems is casting his poetic spell on the equally remarkable Mia Doi Todd‘s “Open Your Heart” — enjoy.

Fab, fab, fab, fab, fab.

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