Art Works Projects joins The Hague Climate Week 2026 for AWP / LIVE: WHO CLEANS UP AFTER US?, 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 workers in Lagos and Nairobi—people doing essential, difficult, and too-often-invisible work within 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 is left to live with the damage. This is not only a waste problem. It is a power problem.
Through an artist conversation, public discussion, and participatory activities, WHO CLEANS UP AFTER US? 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, challenging the stigma surrounding their work and reframing 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 during a period of growing international recognition for these Emerging Lens artists. Lawal has been named a 2026 ZEKE Awards Honorable Mention for his documentary project The Mourning Tide: Reflections on the Coastal Water Crisis, which is featured in the Spring 2026 issue of ZEKE Magazine and will be showcased with 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. Full activity details and participating facilitators will be added 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. This working schedule is subject to confirmation.
FROM ACCOUNTABILITY TO SYSTEMS
This event follows AWP / NOW: NO OTHER EARTH on 2 November at The Hague Humanity Hub. That conversation asks what existing international criminal law can reach—and what recognizing ecocide could add. WHO CLEANS UP AFTER US? 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.
ORGANIZERS
Organized by Art Works Projects and The Hague Humanity Hub. Additional program partners will be announced 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 accessible by wheelchair and mobility scooter 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.