Ghanaian civil engineer Emmanuel Aggrey Tieku transforms discarded garments into massive textile installations that spotlight the waste crisis overwhelming his homeland, where 14 million clothing pieces arrive weekly from overseas. His multiyear endeavor stitches together donated fabrics from global cities into a traveling exhibition he plans to continue building for four decades.
Tieku recently displayed works at a Parisian contemporary African art fair after receiving recognition from Ellipse Art Projects, using donated items from charity Emmaüs to create patterns inspired by local fashion aesthetics. His grandmother, a queen mother and textile enthusiast, shaped his appreciation for fabric as cultural expression before engineering studies led him to explore waste materials as construction resources.
The artist intends to deploy a 2.5-kilometer floating garden across Accra's severely polluted Korle Lagoon, covering the water surface with discarded textiles and flowering plants between two bridges. The intervention aims to transform the contaminated basin into a temporary botanical space while addressing failed cleanup efforts in one of Earth's most degraded urban waterways.
Tieku recently displayed works at a Parisian contemporary African art fair after receiving recognition from Ellipse Art Projects, using donated items from charity Emmaüs to create patterns inspired by local fashion aesthetics. His grandmother, a queen mother and textile enthusiast, shaped his appreciation for fabric as cultural expression before engineering studies led him to explore waste materials as construction resources.
The artist intends to deploy a 2.5-kilometer floating garden across Accra's severely polluted Korle Lagoon, covering the water surface with discarded textiles and flowering plants between two bridges. The intervention aims to transform the contaminated basin into a temporary botanical space while addressing failed cleanup efforts in one of Earth's most degraded urban waterways.
