WHAT WE THROW AWAY DOES NOT DISAPPEAR.
Art Works Projects joins The Hague Climate Week 2026 for AWP / LIVE: Beyond Waste: People, Materials and What We Leave Behind, an exhibition opening and public program centered on the work of Emerging Lens Fellows Oyewole Lawal and Edwin Ndeke. Their photographs bring us into the lives and labor of waste pickers in Lagos and Nairobi—and the environmental consequences of growing urban waste streams.
What we throw away does not disappear. It moves through systems of extraction, production, consumption, labor, and disposal. Those systems determine who profits, who is protected, and who lives with the damage. This is not only a waste problem. It is a power problem.
Through an artist conversation, public discussion, and participatory activities, “Beyond Waste” asks how corporate power, public policy, and political corruption can allow destructive practices to continue—and what more just ways of producing, using, and valuing materials could look like.
FEATURED ARTISTS and moderator
Moderator: Steve Bynum
Interim Executive Director, Art Works Projects
Oyewole Lawal
Photojournalist, sociologist, and AWP Emerging Lens Fellow
Edwin Ndeke
Photojournalist, documentary photographer, and AWP Emerging Lens Fellow
Lawal’s Guardians of Gaia: The Unseen Eco-Warriors documents waste miners at Lagos’s Olusosun Landfill, challenges the stigma around their work, and reframes them as environmental stewards. Ndeke’s documentary work examines life around Kenya’s largest dumpsite, revealing both the ecological consequences of waste and the indispensable workers who sort and recover what others discard.
The Hague presentation comes as these Emerging Lens artists gain growing international recognition. Lawal has been named a 2026 ZEKE Awards Honorable Mention for his documentary project, The Mourning Tide: Reflections on the Coastal Water Crisis, featured in the Spring 2026 issue of ZEKE Magazine and showcased alongside the 2026 ZEKE Award recipients in Paris in November.
Together, their images ask us to look again at what—and whom—we throw away.
FROM WASTE TO SYSTEMS
We will begin with waste, but we will not stop there. The conversation connects visual storytelling with climate justice, labor, ethical representation, and environmental accountability. Why do our economies produce so much waste? Whose work keeps materials in circulation? Who gets to look away—and who cannot?
Visitors will also be invited into creative demonstrations or hands-on activities exploring recycling, circular design, natural materials, and more sustainable ways of working. We'll add full activity details and participating facilitators when confirmed.
PROGRAM AT A GLANCE
16:00–16:30 — Doors open, registration and welcome
16:30–17:00 — Opening and introduction to the artists
17:00–17:30 — Conversation/panel
17:30–18:15 — Participatory element
18:15–19:00 — Networking, drinks and exhibition viewing
All times are local to The Hague.
FROM ACCOUNTABILITY TO SYSTEMS
This event follows AWP / NOW: Environmental Harm as an International Crime on 2 November at The Hague Humanity Hub. That conversation asks what existing international criminal law can reach—and what recognizing ecocide could add. “Beyond Waste” turns to the people, labor, materials, and economic systems behind environmental harm.
Not every act of waste or pollution is ecocide or an international crime. But recurring harm should not become normal simply because it is profitable or familiar.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
In person · Free · Registration required · Capacity 80
ORGANIZERS
Art Works Projects and The Hague Humanity Hub organized this event.
We will announce additional program partners when confirmed.
VENUE AND ACCESSIBILITY
The Grey Space in the Middle is located at Paviljoensgracht 20, 2512 BP Den Haag. The ground floor and basement are wheelchair- and mobility-scooter accessible via a lift, and an accessible toilet is available on the ground floor. Visitors should ask venue staff for lift access. The venue does not have designated accessible parking spaces.