Joyce Addai-Davis

Raised in the UK by Ghanaian parents, her work interrogates how the Global North disguises waste as charity, flooding countries like Ghana with discarded fashion. Through research and creative practice, she exposes these injustices and uses design as a tool for resistance and systemic change.

Her journey deepened in 2021 when she began a Masters at the Royal College of Art, driven by one urgent question: If it can’t be dismantled or absorbed by the earth, should it really exist? This led her to develop the “waste trainer”—a reimagining of discarded footwear—exhibited at London’s Design Museum. The project challenged fashion’s disposability narrative and propelled her into her current role as a Fashion Research Tutor at RCA.

Joyce's practice is rooted in refusal and reinvention. Since 2015, she hasn’t bought new clothing, instead choosing to repair, embellish, and extend the life of what already exists. Her work focuses on circularity, material minimalism, and design for afterlife—crafting pieces that are meant to be taken apart, reused, or digitally imagined. She uses immersive technologies, AI, and speculative world-building to develop low-impact alternatives and challenge our dependence on physical production.

She also created Chronicles of a Bola Waste Girl, a short documentary tracing her journey from UK charity sorting offices to Ghanaian landfills. “Bola” means “waste” in Twi and “bring wealth home” in Yoruba—a powerful linguistic duality that captures her view of discarded materials as both burden and resource.

Currently, Joyce is exploring the demodulation of footwear and accessories through data analysis, consumer research, and regenerative design. Inspired by the legacy of Yaa Asantewaa—the fearless Ghanaian Ashanti warrior queen who stood against colonial rule—she channels that same defiance to confront waste colonialism. Her work is not only a critique of broken systems but a declaration: the future of fashion must be circular, just, and deeply rooted in care.

Joyce Addai-Davis is not just imagining a better fashion system—she’s building it, disrupting it, and teaching others to do the same.