Environmental Responsibility Statement
Dela Anyah
Across Ghana and West Africa, the consequences of the climate emergency — irregular rainfall, accelerating desertification, flooding — are already reshaping daily life. These are the communities my practice is rooted in, where waste tyres are stockpiled, burned, and left to leach into soil and water. I cannot speak of material afterlives, ecological cycles, and the transformation of waste without taking direct responsibility for my own environmental conduct.
My work operates at the intersection of art, and research. My primary medium is discarded tyre byproduct — inner tubes, bicycle rims, mechanical components — recovered from the repair networks that sustain urban mobility across Accra and beyond. Waste, and its refusal, is not peripheral to my practice. It is the practice. This gives me both a particular accountability and a specific vantage point on questions of extraction, disposal, and repair.
My main environmental impacts arise from my studio practice. I am committed to addressing these by:
- Working primarily with discarded and salvaged materials in my studio production
- Documenting and mapping tyre waste flows across Accra as part of an ongoing research commitment to understanding urban material ecologies, with findings disseminated through exhibitions, publications and presentations.
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Sourcing locally and collaborating with the vulcanizer communities who form the social and material foundation of this work
I am a member of the Gallery Climate Coalition. I recognise that this statement is a commitment, not a conclusion. I welcome accountability from my collaborators, partner institutions, and publics.
Signed: Dela Anyah
Accra, March 2026