Exhibition Description:
As we navigate the digital age and witness the rapid obsolescence of electronics, a new frontier emerges: urban mining. E-waste, often overlooked, holds immense value—where a tonne of circuit boards from our discarded electronics contains ten times more precious metals than a tonne of traditional ore.
As a recipient of the Council for the Arts at MIT grant, the exhibition displays the thesis research of Georine Pierre (MAS '24) in the City Science Group. This exhibition delves into the stories of Old Fadama in Accra, Ghana, home to one of the world’s largest e-waste destinations and a population of over 100,000 residents. In this context, informal workers have generated complex ecosystems that tap into the potential of urban mining and its circular economy. Through immersive film, crowd-sourced data visualizations, interviews, and audio-reactive mediums projection-mapped onto repurposed electronics, the exhibition explores the geo-, socio-, and bio-political impacts of global e-waste disposal. You can view more details about the thesis research here.
Thesis Advisor: Kent Larson
Exhibition Contributors: Nana Yaw Asiedu Appenteng / Asiedu Studios, Yiou Wang, Daniel Pillis, Markus ElKatsha, Luis Alonso, Gabriela Bila Advincula, Thomas Sanchez Lengeling, Olivia Tang, and Catherine Wang