Unbroken - A World of Repair

Mark A Phillips ARPS

Sustainability is a global issue, with much of our current focus on emissions and plastic waste in our oceans. But, use of our earth’s resources and its impact on climate are more significant. Making products from more sustainable sources that last longer (through repair, reuse and refurbishment) has the potential to make a substantial impact.

Ever-ready toolkit, Cuba

Mark A Phillips ARPS

Repairers, the unsung heroes, make a significant contribution to reducing the impact of ‘things’, but our ability to do this is faltering, driven by a combination of lack of knowledge, lost skills, product design that inhibits repair, and legal frameworks that make it difficult to set up independent repair.

Repair workshop, La Lisa

Mark A Phillips ARPS

The first part of this project focusses on what, to a large extent, we have lost in the ‘West’: the ability to make do, to mend, and to re-use. However, the art and ingenuity of repair still exists in many places, often considered the ‘Poor World’. The opening part of this project revisits these lost capabilities and those repairing and reusing things to remind us of and to highlight opportunities to re-learn.

Cuba and the never-ending life of things

Javier in Ivan’s workshop, Havana

Mark A Phillips ARPS

At 10am, almost on the dot, Javier opens the gate to the small repair kiosk on Calle Luz in Habana Vieja. The simple workshop houses a counter, a repair area and an equipment store. As soon as the canopy is opened customers arrive and business is brisk. Locals bring electric fans, cookers for rice and food mixers. All the items are many years old and look like they have been repaired many times over. For the typical Cuban this is normal. Imported goods are hard to get and very expensive. Keeping what you have working, is essential.

The kiosk, run by Ivan Marzo Rodriguez with his small team of workers, provides a repair service for the local community in southern Habana Vieja. They repair a range of domestic electrical appliances. Work is often carried out on the spot, using spares from the store rooms. The spares are invariably parts cannibalised from unrepairable items and stored in old metal cabinets. Sometimes there are no spares, so new components may be fashioned or adapted from a different make or model or made from scratch. The repairs are all recorded in a large notebook, which acts as a register. Usually these repairs are given a 3-month guarantee complete with a guarantee card.

Modesto repairing umbrellas, Havana

Mark A Phillips ARPS

Some two miles East, Modesto Zayas Gonzales repairs umbrellas (sombrillos), from his corridor workshop next to his home, in Centro Habana. Like many other repairers his ‘spares’ come from cannibalised parts, removed from umbrellas deemed beyond repair.

Yalisan repairing and up cycling lighters, Havana

Mark A Phillips ARPS

On Calle Bernaza, in Habana Vieja, for several days a week you can find Yalisan Diaz Zomora sitting on the street side, close to a vegetable stall. The gregarious Yalisan is self-taught and repairs lighters. Like other ‘fosforeros’ that ply this trade, he works from a small portable table, covered in parts and tools. These cheap lighters are often considered disposable in the West, but in Cuba they are modified, repurposed, refuelled and reused.

Ghana making better use of ’used’

Ariel, an apprentice at Ivan’s workshop, Havana

Mark A Phillips ARPS

Further exploration of repair culture, in Ghana, centred on the capital Accra and surrounding districts. Accra has a well-developed economy but has also figured in the politics of waste and recycling. It was identified in a 2008 Greenpeace report, as a major ‘dumping ground’ for US and European e-waste (e.g. electronic waste from TVs, consumer electronics, PC and mobile phones). More positively, there is a growing repair economy in and around the landfill site, and investment in a new recycling and repair training centre. In Agbogbloshie there are workshops repairing bicycles, motorbikes and cars, recovering parts for repairs, repairing TVs and computers and casting new cooking pots from recovered aluminium.

Ibrahim's cycle workshop in Agbogbloshie, Ghana

Mark A Phillips ARPS

Ghana has a thriving repair and recycling economy, many second-hand goods are exported from Europe, via the container port of Tema, and distributed across West Africa. There are districts, such as Abosseyokai, that specialise in stripping old and imported cars to create spares and recycle the materials. Other areas, notably in and around Tema, specialise in refurbishing imported second-hand white goods, especially fridges and freezers and TVs. It is explained to me, by one workshop, that many of these goods arrive damaged beyond repair simply because they were packaged so badly!

Daniel in his instrument workshop, Accra, Ghana

Mark A Phillips ARPS

Next Steps

The developing project will explore ‘repair’ from multiple perspectives: this first part takes a cultural perspective where the practice has not (yet) been lost or forgotten. The second (ongoing) part explores activities in Europe, with municipalities and community groups educating and re-teaching the public about repair and building new communities.

Motorbike repair workshop, Agbogbloshie, Ghana

Mark A Phillips ARPS

The overall aim is to shed a light on some opportunities, and those providing solutions, so we can make better use of what we have and build more sustainable approaches.

For more information on the project see: www.markaphillips.co.uk or follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/markaphill