Sculptor Andy Yoder’s latest exhibition is a nod to the Great Shoe Spill of 1990 and the advances in ocean science that came from it.
Written content by Jennifer Nalewicki from Smithsonian Magazine
On May 27, 1990, the Hansa Carrier was traveling from South Korea to Seattle when a sudden storm pummeled the freighter and spilled its contents into the Pacific Ocean near the Alaskan peninsula. While the ship survived the squall, all of its cargo flew overboard, including several 40-foot steel containers holding 61,820 Nike sneakers. In the ensuing weeks, months and years, thousands of the shoes littered beaches across the Pacific Northwest.
Now, 30 years later, sculptor Andy Yoder is revisiting the incident known as the “The Great Shoe Spill of 1990” in a new solo exhibition. “Even today, a lot of people know about the shoe spill and have a rememberance of it,” Yoder says.
Called “Overboard,” the exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, features more than 200 replica Nike Air Jordan 5 athletic shoes created by the sculptor, the same type of sneaker that met its untimely fate in 1990 just as it was being released to consumers by Nike. But instead of working with fabric and thread, Yoder crafts each piece using trash he has foraged around his suburban Washington, D.C. neighborhood. The result is a colorful body of work that adds to the ongoing conversation about environmental protection.
“I think we’ve all become numb to the constant drumbeat [about saving the environment],” Yoder says. “It’s so dire and unavoidable, and the message needs to come at us in a different way that’s not too preachy or doomsday, and [this exhibition] is a backdoor way of doing just that. I wanted to look into how consumer culture effects the environment. When we buy something, it’s often manufactured overseas and travels by shipping container.” Read more from Smithsonian Magazine.
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