This essay was photographed on a densely populated triangle of land in the Ghanaian capital of Accra. Bounded by the Abossey Okai Road and Odaw River, a polluted waterway that flows into the Korle Lagoon, Agbogbloshie is the second largest e-waste processing area in West Africa. It abuts Old Fadama, an impoverished settlement that offers northern migrants to the city the cheapest rents and a convenient base close to the central markets, a major employer. Home to an estimated 80 000 inhabitants, this mixed-used area on a former wetland consists not only of formal and informal residences for disenfranchised migrants to the city, but a commercial bus depot, and a vast and differentiated marketplace that includes specialised e-waste markets. An irregular activity until a few years ago, large volumes of end-of-life computers and television are now handled by Ghana’s port daily.

I first encountered the dump in a photograph published by National Geographic. This is a recurrent theme in my photography, how photographs prompt me to make my own photographs. The work was produced during two trips of two weeks each. I tend to photograph over two-week stretches. I find this is a period in which I can keep my eye fresh. After that you become too accustomed to a place. It was something I realised in Rwanda, how quickly one becomes desensitised and acclimatised to completely unacceptable situations, how the mind is capable of this. - Pieter Hugo