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Back home, the 24-year-old Ivorian artist
dismantles the phones with a hammer to pull out the screens and
keyboards. He uses them for his paintings. One can take him up
to three or five days of work.
Koffi grew up in Koumassi and says he was drawn to recycling and
incorporating e-waste in his art, after seeing how it affected
his environment.
"My number one goal is to try, in my own small way, to reduce
electronic waste that is found in the streets and in the bins,"
he said.
"Here, we are in one of the city's most popular neighborhoods,
where you usually find old phones which can no longer be
repaired."
With a population of about 5.5 million, Abidjan generates up to
1,500 tons of e-waste per year, according to the European
Union-funded E-waste Implementation Toolkit. Koffi says a
significant amount of this waste can be used to make money.
With several exhibitions abroad and at home under his belt,
Koffi is quickly becoming one of Ivory Coast most important
figures in contemporary art.
"I think his work is great. He has decided to go into recycling,
and it really suits him because his work stands out from all
others," fellow Ivorian artist Ezechiel Guibe said.
"Despite incorporating recycling material into his work, he
manages to capture all these forms, faces and emotions in his
work, which really blew us away," added art gallery director,
Olivier Pepe.
(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Juliette Jabkhiro
and Louise Heavens)
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