This photo series was born as a result of the workers and residents of Agbogbloshie, who wanted to counter the negativity around the over-popularised portraits of their community covered in black smoke from burning electronics to extract the copper they sell to earn a living.
A former wetland in the suburb's of the Ghanian capital, it's allegedly the centre of an illegal exportation network for the dumping of outdated, broken and unusuable products from Western nations.
SHOOTING STYLE AND PHOTOGRAPHIC APPROACH
Despite not carrying my usual DSLR camera around my neck, it began with this young girl assuming I had one and asking me to have her picture taken to show she was proud of her work cleaning recyclable plastics collected from the dump.
Those who could see the fun she was having also wanted portraits, resulting in a domino effect of others coming forward to have their picture taken.
The resulting images therefore have a different tone to mainstream portrayal, instead focusing on life behind the scenes that provide a wider context of why people come to find work here despite the dangers both to the environment and their own health.
The toughest section of the waste dump was in the far back where migrants from across West Africa temporarily for a period of of a few weeks to a few months at a time to earn a living from selling anything they can make some cash from.
As a solution to combat homelessness, the migrants build shacks on site from various items that have landed there. They take the best materials for themselves before it ends up in the hands of a buyer, and also dress themselves in clothing they have found in the rubbish.
Strength was a key feature in the body language expressed by the men on site - they were as "tough" as their working and living conditions around them. The difference between the first and second shot of the same man below demonstrates this sense of pride, which counteracts the typically negative portrayals of a controversial site such as this.
The UN estimates that approximately 50 million tonnes of e-waste is thrown away globally every year. Regardless of where the used electronics have come from and how they have entered into the country, many continue to depend on it as a source of income.
The series was published in VICE’s technology strand Motherboard, and exhibited in an athroposcene exhibition in Switzerland.
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