‘In Nigeria, a tyre never quite dies’: reinventing the

The photographer Andrew Esiebo travelled around the city capturing how car tyres otherwise destined for the dump are finding second lives as seats, fences and swings

The work of a vulcaniser is not unlike that of a surgeon, says the Nigerian photographer Andrew Esiebo. Armed with precision tools, vulcanisers across Nigeria extend the lives of tyres otherwise destined for the scrap heap.

“Vulcanisers are like doctors for tyres because the way they work is like surgery,” says Esiebo, who has chronicled how used tyres are being repurposed in Lagos in a photography series exhibited as part of the British Academy-funded Pneuma-City project.

Vulcanisers see their role as keeping the city moving