Pieter Hugo, Yakubu Al Hasan, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2009, Courtesy Michael Stevenson, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

A dump site for digital technology, Africa’s notorious Agbogbloshie Market is a toxic wasteland where Europe’s outdated computers are scavenged for spare parts and torched to recycle precious materials. The surreal site in Ghana’s capital city of Accra has been burdened with tribal rivalries, drug problems, and child trafficking, while receiving repeated warnings from international agencies about massive emissions of noxious fumes, threatening the pickers, and poisonous chemicals, seeping into the soil.

Pieter Hugo, David Akore, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2010, Courtesy Michael Stevenson, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

A surprisingly suppressed story, it gained worldwide attention when the New York Times Magazine published pictures of the heavily polluted place by South African photographer Pieter Hugo in 2010. Previously praised for his colorful portrayal of Nollywood, Nigeria’s explosive film capital, Hugo possesses an acute aesthetic eye, along with a fearlessness to confront and expose the shameful side of commercial consumption and the enormous amounts of unwanted waste tied to the rapid evolution of digital technology.

Pieter Hugo, Untitled, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2010, Courtesy Michael Stevenson, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

Hugo’s hardcover Permanent Error, which was published by Prestel earlier this year, offers 60 color images from his 2009-2010 photographic series. Accompanied by an introduction to Hugo’s body of work by Federica Angelucci and an essay about the perils of e-waste and the failed attempts to govern it by Jim Puckett, this dynamic monograph presents a timely look at a global problem that’s growing larger everyday.

Pieter Hugo, Ibrahim Sulley, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2009, Courtesy Michael Stevenson, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

Pieter Hugo, Naasra Yeti, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2009, Courtesy Michael Stevenson, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

Pieter Hugo, Untitled, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana 2010, Courtesy Michael Stevenson, Cape Town and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

An exhibition of Pieter Hugo’s Permanent Error pictures is currently on view at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York through October 29, 2011.

Posted on: September 22nd, 2011 by Paul Laster
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