Gallery
Video Gallery
warning! please note that those videos are quite heavy comparing with other visual content available here, please stream responsibly!
Project overview
An immersive field research project focused on documenting the human, environmental, and social realities of electronic waste processing through direct engagement with communities working within informal recycling ecosystems.
The research centred on observing the lived conditions surrounding e-waste dismantling and material recovery, revealing the often-overlooked physical afterlife of digital devices and the complex systems sustaining those who depend on this labour for survival.
Main objectives
The project aimed to develop a grounded, embodied understanding of e-waste as a lived system rather than an abstract environmental issue. Through field immersion, participant observation, and qualitative interviews, the research sought to:
☀︎ Map the informal supply chains connecting global consumer markets to local recycling communities
☀︎ Identify the health, economic, and social consequences of e-waste labour
☀︎ Understand the power dynamics and dependencies within informal recycling networks
☀︎ Foreground the voices and agency of communities often reduced to statistics
By prioritising relationship-based research, the project resisted extractive documentation and instead focused on building trust and shared understanding.
Achieved results
The study produced a nuanced documentation of the lived experiences of communities whose livelihoods depend on e-waste processing, revealing realities far more complex than those captured by quantitative data alone.
It uncovered previously undocumented or poorly visible supply chain pathways, demonstrating how global consumption patterns directly shape local ecological and social landscapes.
Through sustained presence and dialogue, the research established meaningful relationships with local participants, laying the groundwork for future collaborative and community-led initiatives rather than externally imposed solutions.
Main reflection
This field experience exposed the profound disconnection between digital convenience and its material consequences.
Witnessing communities existing within environments saturated by technological debris made visible the hidden costs of hyper-consumption that remain largely erased from mainstream narratives of innovation and progress.
The project underscored that electronic waste cannot be addressed solely as an environmental crisis: it must be understood as a complex socio-economic ecosystem in which survival, exploitation, resilience, and global inequality intersect.
It reaffirmed that any ethical approach to technological futures must acknowledge not only the devices we celebrate, but also the bodies and landscapes that absorb their decay.