Biography
Dela Anyah is an artist and researcher based in Accra, Ghana, working across sculpture, photography, mapping, and archival research. His practice is grounded in the contemporary history of the tyre industry — the global systems that sustain its trade and circulation, the labour networks and migration patterns that underpin it, and the economic forces that determine where discarded tyres land and who manages them. The repair shop is where this inquiry becomes material: a site where damaged and discarded tyres converge, and where informal labour, accumulated knowledge, and ecological consequence are inseparable.
Anyah is building an archive and mapping project that documents repair sites across Ghana as primary sources. This research underpins a body of object-based work — sculptures, woven forms, and installations — that engages the repair shop as subject rather than backdrop. His essays and research have appeared in Thresholds (MIT Press), Adjacent (NYU ITP), and LIMN Magazine.
His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Biennale Internationale de Sculpture de Ouagadougou, Mitchell-Innes & Nash (New York), The Anzai Gallery (Tokyo), AKKA Project (Venice), Galleri Christoffer Egelund (Copenhagen), and Gallery 1957 (Accra). In Ghana, he has presented solo exhibitions including Elementary Rebirth at Nubuke Foundation and The Dreamer's Cocoon at The Noldor Residency.
Anyah is a finalist for the Ellipse Art Prize (2025), Second Runner-Up for the Kuenyehia Prize (2023), and a 2026 Building Beyond Fellow of the Prince Claus Fund. His works are held in the Celine Art Project, Sir David Adjaye Collection, and Fischer Shull Collection.
Curriculum Vitae
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 Elementary Rebirth, Nubuke Foundation, Accra, Ghana
2022 The Dreamers Cocoon, The Noldor Residency, Accra, Ghana
2019 New Slaves, Hope City Church, Accra, Ghana
2019 Abuse Series, Canadian High Commissioner’s Residence, Accra, Ghana
2019 Abuse Series, Canadian High Commission, Accra, Ghana
2019 Minutes Before a Heartbreak, Antique Lemonade Art Space, Accra, Ghana
2018 Abuse Series, Antique Lemonade Art Space, Accra, Ghana
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Atlas of Uncertainty, Origins Centre Museum, Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa
2025 Biennale Internationale de Sculpture de Ouagadougou, Insoutenable Frontière, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
2025 In the Fold, Nubuke Foundation, Accra, Ghana
2025 Ellipse Prize Finalist Show, The Mix Design Hub, Accra, Ghana
2024 Don’t Be A Square!, AKKA Project, Venice, Italy
2024 Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space, Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana
2024 Bold, Honouring James Barnor’s 95th Birthday. Featuring Works by Dela Anyah, Institute Museum of Ghana, Accra, Ghana. With accompanying artist talk.
2024 Form Comes To Mind, The Anzai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2023 Atererekariaye (2023), Africa Women and Children Climate Change Initiative Pre-Conference of the Parties 28 (AFRIWOCC Pre-COP28), West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), Accra, Ghana.
2023 Homecoming, Museum of Science and Technology, Accra, Ghana
2023 X’MAS 23, Galleri Christoffer Egelund, Copenhagen, Denmark
2023 Kaleidoscope of Dreams, Institute Museum of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
2023 Worldmaking, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, USA
2023 SUMMERTIME’23, Galleri Christoffer Egelund, Copenhagen, Denmark
2023 REVERB 23 | Abstract Resonances //Contemporary Voices, Latitudes Online
2023 Kuenyehia Prize Awards, The Mix Design Hub, Accra, Ghana
2018 Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls, Alliance Française Accra, Accra, Ghana— Group exhibition commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, organized in collaboration with the French Embassy in Ghana, UNFPA, Zonta e-Club of West Africa, and CoPASH.
2018 Ghanaian Artists Works in Tbilisi, iArt Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia— Cultural exchange group exhibition organized with Antique Lemonade Art Space..
2017 Art Retrospective, Alliance Française Accra, Accra, Ghana
PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS
2025 Homecoming Dome, Multiple Vulcanizer Spaces, Accra, Ghana
2025 Elevation GIHOC, (Former) GIHOC Pharmaceuticals Company Ltd, Accra, Ghana
2024 Homecoming Madina Estates, Rims and Tyres, Accra, Ghana
2024 Forgotten Futures, Multiple Vulcanizer Spaces, Accra, Ghana (Conducted simultaneously across multiple locations.)
2024 EDOTOM 2 (2023), Vulcaniser Shop Ashiyie, Accra, Ghana.
2023 Edem (2023), Rahim’s Vulcaniser Shop Motorway, Accra, Ghana
2023 Homecoming (2), Vulcaniser Shop Islamic School bus stop Adjiringanor, Accra, Ghana
2023 Homecoming, Bicycle Repair Shop Adjiringanor, Accra, Ghana
PUBLICATIONS
2026 Anyah, Dela. “Walls as Luxury: The Economics of Informal Repair Shops.” Log 66. New York: Anyone Corporation.
2026 Anyah, Dela. “Tire as Roadside Ornament.” NYU ITP Adjacent, Issue 13: Ornament, 2026. Available at: View article
2026 Anyah, Dela. “The Vulcanizer Shop: Materiality, Precarity, and Informal Repair Infrastructures.” The MIT Press: Thresholds 54
2025 Lord, Please Bring Me to a Place of Settlement. Artist publication. Afrobutylism Studio, Accra, 2025. Published to accompany the presentation at the Biennale Internationale de Sculpture de Ouagadougou (BISO).
2024 “Art Beyond Waste”. LIMN Magazine, The Obsolescence Issue, No. 11, p. 32. Cover photograph featured.
2024 Enter the Tire Verse, artist publication, Afrobutylism Studio, Accra.
TALKS/ LECTURES
2025 Homecoming: Vulcanizer Shop as Exhibition Space, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Ghana, Accra
2025 After the Races, After the Stunts, After You Need Me No More: A Bicycle Tire Story, SSHRED (Skating, Sustainability, Health Research, and Environmental Design) Online Seminar Series
2024 Ruins as Form: Inspiration and Articulation from Scrap Scapes, panelist, Nkabom Literary & Arts Festival, George Padmore Library, Accra, Ghana.
2024 Transforming Tire Waste: Histories, Processes, and Innovative Forms, virtual presentation and work display, Energy, Waste, and the Environment in West Africa, hosted by the Departments of Anthropology & History, Rice University (Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, USA)
2023 VOICES: Ghana’s Artists in Their Own Words Book Launch, panelist, La Gallery, Accra, Ghana
2023 Community Sense of Potential, panelist, Nkabom Literary & Arts Festival, Kukun, Accra, Ghana
2023 Presentation on Artistic Practice, Ghana Climate Innovation Centre & Atlantic Council - Climate Leadership Program, Jamestown Cafe, Accra, Ghana.
RESIDENCIES & WORKSHOPS
2025 Frame of Ghana, Reading Room: Ghana in Portrait, Si Hene Foundation, Accra
2025 Masterclass on the Aesthetics of Willis E. Bell, Willis Bell Photographic Archive, Accra
2023 Research for Arts Practice, Workshop Participant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Accra, Ghana.
2022 Artist-in-Residence, The Noldor Residency, Accra, Ghana
FELLOWSHIPS
2026 Building Beyond Fellow, Prince Claus Fund
GRANTS & AWARDS
2025 Finalist, Ellipse Art Prize
2023 2nd Runner Up, Kuenyehia Prize for Contemporary Art
2022 Semi-Finalist, Art X Prize
COLLECTIONS
CELINE ART PROJECT Puerto Banus
Sir David Adjaye Collection New York | London | Accra
The Institute Museum of Ghana Accra
Kuenyehia Collection Accra
Canadian High Commission Accra
Fischer Shull Collection North Carolina
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2024 "Changing a Tyre Into Art," Sawubona, Profile by Sbu Mkwanazi, Issue 71, pp. 70-71
2023 "Voices: Ghana’s Artists in Their Own Words," Manju Journal, Twentyfour Thirtysix Ltd, p. 54