Arts and design strategies to address climate emergency and action: the case of electronic waste in Accra, Ghana

This contribution situates the role of public media art, critical making and reappropriation techniques as sociopolitical vehicles for enhancing climate actions and awareness in contexts of technological inequalities and electronic waste in Accra, Ghana. Our article expands from two case studies in order to inquire how ecological literacy and activism is developed through design by Ghanaian arts and design communities; in reaction to climate emergency and the production of electronic waste. Our contribution’s introduction will explore how arts and design practices of technology making and literacy can be combined with critical thinking in order to question, expose and research on the sociotechnical entanglements and issues of computing. We will moreover contextualise our contribution through Hertz and Parikka “zombie-media” (2012) methodology. Placing here the emphasis on the planned obsolescence regime and on the critical re-appropriation of discarded electronics, this framework will enable us to underlie the importance of design practices evolving around e-waste and technological pollution in Ghana (and Africa); as active forms of ecological media activism, literacy and awareness. Drawing from this context, we will then expand on the Agbogbloshie Maker Space Platform (AMP), a collaborative space operating from the iconic commercial district and dumping site of Agbogbloshie, Accra. This case study will enable us to state the potential of participatory design methods as tools for collective literacy and awareness; situating such frameworks as crucial agents empowering and positively impacting the landfil’s local community of scrap recyclers and dealers. We will also connect these initiatives to the work of Ghanean media artists repurposing the materiality of discarded computers in order to support media literacy through critical thinking and debate. Zooming at the level of ​​Akwasi Bediako Afrane, we will then investigate here the making of his “TRONS”(2022); assemblage-shaped robots acting as “platforms and media for reflection, engagement and interactions”. In dynamic with Hertz and Parikka, these will enable us to conclude on the importance of arts and design methodologies as crucial vectors empowering local communities through climate actions that critically address the planetary ecological intertwinement of computing and technology. References: Hertz, G. & Parikka, J. (2012). Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an Art Method. Leonardo, 45 (5): 424–430. https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_00438 Case studies: The Agbogbloshie Maker Space Platform (AMP): https://qamp.net/ Akwasi Bediako Afrane’s “TRONS”: https://www.gameoftrons.com/