Emmanuel Tieku





Emmanuel Aggrey Tieku’s practice transforms discarded textiles into striking installations, interrogating waste colonialism, consumerism, and identity. Drawing inspiration from his Fante heritage and a background in Civil Engineering, he repurposes second-hand clothing sourced from landfills, beaches, and Kantamanto Market, exploring the narratives embedded in these once-loved garments. His work, a fusion of sculpture and painting, challenges perceptions of sustainability and self-liberation.

Aggrey Tieku’s engagement with textile waste began as an experiment during his final-year engineering project, where he researched recycling and reusing discarded fabric in construction. This discovery evolved into an artistic inquiry into the histories embedded in objects at the end of their life cycle. Through dyeing, layering, and reshaping textiles, he constructs bold compositions that reflect the tension between cultural appropriation, industrialisation, and the evolving meaning of fashion as personal and collective identity.

At WOORI 2025, Aggrey Tieku presents a new exploration of material memory, where fabric undergoes rigorous transformation to emerge as an entirely new medium of expression. His work stands as a vivid testament to the resilience of materials—and the stories they carry.Textile
Painting
Installation
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Nubuke Foundation Centre for Textiles and Clay, Wa ⋅ 2026