🗓 Exhibition: May 15 - June 13, 2025 | 🕖 Mo-Fr 10 AM - 5:00 PM 
📍 Begegnungscafé at Berlin Global Village | Am Sudhaus 2
FREE ENTRY

You’re warmly invited to the exhibition of “Unwanted Waste or Precious Resources?”. The exhibition sheds light on the reality of informal e-waste recycling in Ghana – through photographs by award-winning Ghanaian photojournalist Muntaka Chasant.

Running from May 15 to June 13, 2025, the exhibition focuses on the e-waste workers in Ghana who recover valuable materials from discarded electronics. The images document life and labor after the destruction of the Agbogbloshie scrapyard in Ghana’s capital Accra in 2021. It highlights the socioeconomic importance and complex local knowledge behind the recycling process – challenging common stereotypes that portray the practice solely as harmful or exploitative. How is the world of electronic waste changing – and whose voices are heard when it comes to solutions? How do reforms and regulations in Europe and Ghana intersect? And where are innovations taking place in the economic systems of circularity and waste management?

Stop by – be inspired and challenged to think differently. The exhibition runs through June 13, 2025, and can be visited during opening hours at the Begegnungscafé in Berlin Global Village.

The exhibition opening on May 15th began with a guided tour by the photographer, offering insight into the perspectives of workers in Accra’s informal recycling sector. The following roundtable discussion focued on the international dimensions of e-waste and the role of policy and reform in Europe and West Africa. 

Panelists included:

• Muntaka Chasant, award-winning photographer and researcher from Ghana
• Mubarik Kassim Rabiu, researcher on consumer roles in a circular society, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg
• Frederick Adjei, expert on global material flows, Öko-Institut Berlin
• Uli Beisel, professor at FU Berlin and researcher on environmental justice

Presented by the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, in cooperation with Berlin Global Village.

*** Mehr Informationen zu den Diskussionsteilnehmer*innen ***
Muntaka Chasant is a multi-award-winning Ghanaian photojournalist and independent researcher known for his compelling work on waste geographies and various pressing environmental issues. He conducts extensive ethnographic field research to explore the complexities of waste, urban marginality, and climate change. His work not only raises awareness but also inspires action for a more sustainable future.

Mubarik Kassim Rabiu is an environmental sociologist at the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and investigates how consumers contribute to the transformation towards a circular society through practices such as reuse, repair and refurbishment. A particular focus is on social innovations and their impact on our relationship with technology, the environment and materiality.

Frederick Adjei is a research associate at the Öko-Institut in Berlin. He works on sustainable resource efficiency and global material cycles. His work focuses on promoting sustainability in electronic products and electric mobility systems, with a particular focus on high social and environmental standards along global supply chains.

Uli Beisel is Professor of Geographical Development Research at the Free University of Berlin and investigates the spatialisation of global inequalities and conditions of social transformation processes, particularly in the fields of nature and culture, planetary health and environmental justice.