Kpone Landfill aerial — Ribbon visible at the edge
The lighthouse project

How to Heal a Broken World.

The Ribbon that connects us.

Kpone Landfill, Accra · 2025
What it is

A growing textile archive. Built from clothes that travelled across continents — worn, given away, shipped, sold, sorted, dumped, picked up again, stitched together, and laid out across places that hold meaning.

Not an exhibition. A movement.

Started by Emmanuel Aggrey Tieku in Accra in 2020. Now travelling between Ghana, Germany, France, and wherever the Ribbon is invited next.

Where the Ribbon began

Ghana is not the problem. It's the mirror.

Every week, around fifteen million pieces of used clothing arrive at the port of Tema. Most never sold. Most never wanted.

Around forty percent of what enters the second-hand market at Kantamanto in Accra is unsellable on arrival. It moves to landfills like Kpone, where mountains of cloth smoulder, leach into the soil, and stretch all the way down to the ocean.

This is not a story about Ghana. Ghana is where the story becomes visible.

Why a textile, not a campaign

Statistics don't change minds. Stories do.

There are already countless designers, repair movements, and circular initiatives doing crucial work on textiles. Each one is necessary. None of them, alone, will turn the tide.

Art does something different. It creates an emotional access point — a moment of pause that data cannot deliver.

The Ribbon doesn't argue. It asks.

Stations so far

From Accra to Paris.

Each stitch a city. Each station a story.

  1. 2020

    Butterflies on a Parched Land

    Accra, Ghana
  2. 2021

    Spaces and Sounds I

    Accra, Ghana
  3. 2022

    Spaces and Sounds II

    Accra, Ghana
  4. 2024

    Cross-Sections of a Thousand Lives

    Accra, Ghana · Institute Museum of Ghana
  5. 2025

    Woori Festival at Nubuke Foundation

    Accra, Ghana · Nubuke Foundation
  6. 2025

    Kpone Landfill — Where the Clothes End

    Accra, Ghana · Kpone Textile Landfill
  7. 2025

    Jamestown Fishing Harbour — Ribbon at Sea

    Accra, Ghana · Jamestown Fishing Harbour
  8. 2025

    OSU Cemetery — Accra

    Accra, Ghana · OSU Cemetery (Osu Christiansborg Cemetery)
  9. 2025

    Billboard Accra

    Accra, Ghana
  10. 2025

    Augustusburg — The Crown of the Ore Mountains

    Augustusburg, Saxony, Germany · Augustusburg Castle (Schloss Augustusburg)
  11. 2025

    Chemnitz Maker Festival

    Chemnitz, Germany · Maker e.V. / Esche LAB
  12. 2025

    Alte Utting — A Ship in the Middle of the City

    Munich, Germany · Alte Utting (former Ammersee passenger steamer turned bar/venue)
  13. 2025

    Villa Stuck — Whisper from the Past

    Munich, Germany · Museum Villa Stuck
  14. 2025

    AKAA Art Fair — Paris

    Paris, France · AKAA (Also Known As Africa) Art & Design Fair

  15. Recognized with the Ellipse Prize 2025.

Three ways to be part of it

Patron. Maker. Voice.

However you arrive, the Ribbon grows. We're not looking for sponsors — we're looking for allies. Every contribution turns what is often invisible into something tangible and shared.

Patron The core. The enablers.

Patrons make the long arc possible. They provide strategic stability, financial security, and access to networks the project couldn't open alone. Patrons don't buy a piece. They invest in fifteen years of an unfolding story.

What we look for

  • Strategic advice and exchange
  • Committed financial support
  • Acting as a door-opener and trusted guide

What you gain

  • Recognition as Founding Patron in all core documents
  • Exclusive previews and participation in background dialogues
  • The chance to shape an international art and sustainability project designed to span 15+ years
Become a Patron →
Maker The Ribbon Hosts.

Makers bring the Ribbon to a place. A museum. A corporate campus. A public square. A festival. Together we design an installation that fits the host, the audience, and the moment. Your staff, partners, and community become part of the global artwork.

What we look for

  • Hosting and financing an installation
  • Engaging your staff and community in the process
  • Communication support (press, social, internal)

What you gain

  • A visible Ribbon station as part of a growing global work
  • On-site visibility through press, audience, and employees
  • Presence in the collective documentation — website, film, book, social media
  • Active co-creation with your community
Host an Installation →
Voice The Circle of Allies.

Voices are initiatives, companies, researchers, and alliances who add their thread. Their solutions, their stories, their textiles. Together, many authentic voices create the Ribbon's strongest backbone.

What we look for

  • A link from your website, a social media mention, visible support
  • A symbolic presence in the Ribbon — your logo, your story, or a textile contribution
  • Standing publicly as part of the Ribbon community

What you gain

  • Visibility as part of the Circle of Allies
  • Your work amplified through art
  • Belonging to an international network of solutions
  • The chance to declare: We are part of the solution, not the problem.
Add your Voice →
Go deeper

The Ribbon has its own home.

Full documentation of every station, the artists involved, the partners, the press, and the timeline lives at the project's dedicated site.

Visit howtohealabrokenworld.com

Let's co-author a story the world won't forget.

Patrons, Makers, and Voices each enter the project differently — but the conversation always starts the same way.

Become part of it Host an installation

Direct contact · Lars Lockemann · lars@to-choose.de · +49 151 230 151 41