LEGACY, 2022 

LEGACY, 2022
1500 x 1500 mm
Oil, 3D modelling and and Digital Collage on  C-type print on DIASEC

Agbogbloshie in Ghana is a major hub for e-waste dumping on the outskirts of central Accra. The site conjures up images of an urban wasteland of thick black smoke pierced by flame over miles of dilapidated desktops. Bare wires and broken glass leave the viewer with a sense of despair.  Amidst fields of debris, there are people in soot-stained clothes sorting through the wreckage.

The recycling in Agbogbloshie is primarily informal, consisting of individuals manually removing parts of burning plastics to expose profitable metals, such as copper and wires.The great paradox here is that individuals  rely on the recycling for their livelihood, yet this method of informal recycling and metal recovery presents numerous human health and ecological concerns for them, and the surrounding informal settlement. The soil and water in the surrounding area indicate the presence of toxic contaminants such as arsenic, lead and mercury. With over 50 million tonnes of e-waste produced every year, it is important to recognise that e-waste management is an inherently global issue and one that is not being equitably addressed.

The works by AD-Reflex specifically developed for this exhibition are a whole ‘palimpsest’ of human effort and history. In ancient Greece, a ‘palimpsest’ was a parchment written upon twice, provoking the idea of vanishing words, memories, and stories, and implying a process of layering and retrieving. AD-Reflex’s entire sensibility appears to be stretched between irreconcilable extremes. In their hands, history and fact, beauty and despair,  turn out to be disturbingly malleable and imprecise. They draw on any source which might provide the mythical structure to underpin their imagery. Diverse sources ranging from the recycling efforts in Agbogbloshie, Greek mythology, Caravaggio, Francis Bacon and Twenty First Century technologies co-exist freely, and are in perpetual transformation. The ‘palimpsest’ speaks to a cohabitation of seemingly alien narratives folding and unfolding in dialogue. This discloses a state of duality, where we feel both aware and unaware, empowered and disempowered.

Through extensive layering, their work borders on the ‘alchemical’ where no clear distinction can be drawn between the painterly and the digital. Painting clashes with technology in the form of 3D-modelling, digital collage, and digital photo manipulation techniques on print and DIASEC, to form a distinctly new visual language that is resolutely  grounded in the ‘here’ and ‘now’.