BENJAMIN VON WONG: Big Brands, Complex Systems of Global Production, and AI

PhotoED Magazine
Apr 19
6 min read

#MermaidsHatePlastic By 2050, there will be more plastics than fish in the sea. It takes 450 years for the average plastic bottle to disintegrate. 10 000 bottles were borrowed from a waste management centre and volunteers worked to create meaningful, shareable images, spreading the word about the volume of plastics in our water now and in the future.

BENJAMIN VON WONG is a Canadian self-taught photographer whose work has been seen by millions of people around the world. He has been named a Branded Content Mastermind by Adweek, holds a Guinness World Record, and acts as a creative advisor for the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network and the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. Benjamin takes anywhere from weeks to months to prepare his elaborate shoots working with global teams. He shares much of his behind-the-scenes work online, which provides viewers with insight into his creative process and an appreciation for the monumental scale of the projects he and his community of collaborators take on. I asked him a few hard questions about his work and what keeps him motivated.

Your website unforgettablelabs.com highlights your numerous commercial projects and the consistently impressive marketing reach you’ve achieved for various organizations, from large commercial corporates to charities. You offer an open invitation for organizations to reach out with their promotional projects. Completed projects include work with Nike and Nexus Summit (an organization interested in closing the fast-fashion loop). How do you select which brands you associate with? How do you personally square working with both sides of a coin — Nike being a powerhouse global fast-fashion brand well known for human rights abuses in their production processes, and Nexus a social entrepreneur and philanthropic organization?

Since we live in a colonial and extractive world — all large sums of money are tainted. As a result, I always try to start conversations from a place of curiosity, rather than one of judgment. There are three kinds of projects that I create: those that I fund myself, projects that I seek sponsorship for, and projects I get hired to do for a commercial purpose.

For projects I seek sponsors for, where the funding comes from doesn’t really matter to me, as the funders have no creative input in my work. I see them as simply putting their dollars to good use. Unless conversations reveal the sponsorship may be used in false marketing or greenwashing claims, I’m generally interested in working with a pretty broad segment of companies.

For the projects that I get hired to do for commercial purposes, I do my due diligence. I look at the track record of the brand and where they’re headed.

My general philosophy is to find partners that are committed to progress, but I’m not married to perfection. What matters most to me, is whether or not a brand has been consistent in respecting their commitments and making improvements to society. Is my creativity being used to change an existing system or prop-up a corrupt one? Does the client also want to go above and beyond, or are they just looking to move product off a shelf?

With regards to Nike specifically, the sweatshop scandal came up in 1991. Since then, they’ve worked to increase and improve wages, worker conditions, and labour practices — going so far as to start the Fair Labor Association in 1998. Are they perfect? No, absolutely not — the entire fashion industry is problematic — but I do think they’ve made an effort to be better socially and environmentally.

Impact is never easy, and the most important thing is to find the right collaborators.

#TurnOffThePlasticTap A giant plastic tap spewing plastics sourced from Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, greeted delegates from 193 different countries coming together at UNEA 5.2 to discuss what is being termed the “Paris Agreement for Plastics.” The installation was created where discussions around a global plastic treaty took place at the UN Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Since, the Tap has travelled to five cities and appeared at the United Nations Ocean Conference in July 2022.

An image is worth a thousand words. Your incredible installations about water and plastic issues demonstrate important messages about recycling and the harm plastic waste causes. Consumers need to consider these issues when making their daily purchasing power decisions. But how do you feel seeing seemingly little movement from those responsible for the problem (i.e., plastic bottle manufacturers and large volume retailers)?

I disagree that there is no movement! It’s not moving fast enough, but that doesn’t mean it’s not moving at all! Plastic pollution is one of the few things in the world that everybody hates. Everyone agrees there’s a problem, but few agree on how to solve it. Some organizations are focused on finding a plastics replacement (biodegradable plastics), while others champion recycling, while others think we just need to reduce plastic production.

Large plastic manufacturers are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in innovation projects in search of sustainable alternatives to drive change. Whether or not they’re successful is another thing.

The topic is extremely nuanced.

At the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations at the United Nations meeting in Kenya in 2022, large commercial global brands also advocated for the treaty because added restrictions on virgin plastics would increase the value and commercial viability of recycled plastic.

But that agreement alone, doesn’t create change.

If we think about Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), for example, which involves demanding that brands put aside a portion of profits to clean up their own waste, things get complicated when we start looking at the details: Who is responsible for which parts of the cleanup? Who manages the funds? How does that work across countries? Municipalities? Industries? These are large complex problems that have no simple solutions.

While the problem of plastic is larger today than it ever has been, the pressure for change in consideration of environmental impact is also higher than it’s ever been. Almost everything we buy touches plastic at some point. Being a responsible consumer is as important as collectively finding ways to pressure the larger system itself to change.

I think art can play an important role in change-making.

The work that I do can be used and shared by, individuals, nonprofit, for-profit, and governmental organizations alike. It does not prescribe a solution, but rather invites a conversation.

My aim is to make sure that the problem stays top of mind for the most people possible to accelerate positive change.

Your productions are elaborate. With the artificial intelligence (AI) tools now available to image-makers, why not simply create your visuals digitally? What is it about the production process that drives you?

Theoretically, creating the images I envision entirely digitally might be easier than planning and executing projects with large teams. But making “easy” projects is not the driving force behind why I do what I do.

I love the real-world adventures, interactions, and explorations that come as part of creating in a physical space — and I think that the advent of artificial intelligence actually gives my work more value.

In a world where digital content is becoming increasingly accessible, automated, and ubiquitous, the signal-to-noise ratio is getting higher and higher. The amount of mediocre content we see online is extremely high. It’s just not interesting for me to participate in a creation process that is about quantity over quality.

The end result of my efforts is only one part of the larger story. The more valuable part, arguably, is the creative process itself. Stories are what give meaning and value to art, and I think that AI can only take that so far.

The kind of work that I like to do requires a lot of thought and preparation. I also think about how it could serve larger movements. How and where else could the structures I build or the images I create be used to amplify the topics I’m passionate about towards positive social change?