Do you know the African artists who transform trash into art? No? Then get ready to meet them. Simonet Biokou, from Benin, and discover one of the continent's most surprising and inspiring creative movements. In a world where excessive consumption and waste are growing rapidly, there are voices in Africa that find beauty where others only see abandonment.

With a unique blend of tradition, innovation, and environmental awareness, these artists recycle metals, plastics, fabrics, abandoned objects, technological scraps, and even weapons, giving them a second life in the form of sculptures, installations, and works of art that tell powerful stories.

This is the sixth article in a new series of 17, this time dedicated to visionary creators who not only rescue forgotten materials but also reinvent how we think about art, sustainability, and the future of the planet. Each piece is a testament to resilience, creativity, and connection to communities, demonstrating that from what seemed lost, something beautiful and transformative can be born.

If you're looking for inspiration, innovation, and a different perspective on what art can be, don't miss this trip. You'll meet artists who push the limits of what's possible and make Africa a vibrant stage for contemporary art made from the unexpected: trash.

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Simonet Biokou was born on July 7, 1965, in Porto Novo, the historic capital of Benin. This city, home to centuries of cultural exchange and rich in artisanal traditions and Vodun spirituality, was the formative environment of her life. Her proximity to iron—a material ubiquitous in the daily lives of local communities—would shape her artistic path and destiny.

Coming from a lineage of traditional blacksmiths, Biokou grew up watching his father and other artisans shape metal with almost ritualistic precision, transforming the raw material into useful objects or symbols of power. That childhood, spent amidst the sound of the hammer and the heat of the forges, was his true school of art, long before any contact with academia.

From a young age, Biokou demonstrated a fascination with the expressive potential of iron. To him, the metal seemed to possess a soul of its own, a hidden memory that responded to fire and the human hand. The blacksmith's gesture, repeated since time immemorial, was seen not only as a technique but as a spiritual act.

This perception, inherent to the Vodun universe, profoundly shaped his perspective. The oral tradition, dances, rituals, and masks of Porto Novo fueled his imagination, assigning meaning to each tool, chain, or piece of iron.

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Simonet Biokou's work is distinguished by a rare combination of technical vigor and symbolic depth. Each sculpture is the result of a time-consuming process of collecting, selecting, and transforming materials.

The artist scours scrap yards and auto repair shops in search of metal parts—pistons, chains, radiators, gears, springs, and plates—that have reached their full useful life. He then rearranges them, giving them a new formal and spiritual identity.

Rusted iron, engine remains, and machinery fragments become, in his hands, living elements, endowed with expressiveness and soul. Biokou creates primarily human figures, many of them inspired by Vodun mythology, Benin traditions, and the daily activities of his community.

He depicts warriors, hunters, blacksmiths, musicians, mothers, workers, but also gods and spiritual entities. His sculptures oscillate between figurative realism and symbolic abstraction: bodies made of chains, faces formed of gears, limbs composed of tubes and plates.

The result is simultaneously organic and mechanical—as if man and machine fused into a single ritual body. One of the most recurring presences in his works is that of the god Ogum, the spirit of iron and war, venerated in the Vodun pantheon.

In several sculptures, Ogum appears with forging tools or weapons, symbolizing both destructive power and creative force. This duality is essential to Biokou's vision, where the same metal used to make weapons can also be transformed into art.

The Representation of Everyday Life

Another aspect of his work is the representation of modern African daily life. Biokou creates figures that portray marching band musicians, workers, drivers, and soldiers, capturing the urban rhythm and energy of African cities.

Gears and chains become symbols of this perpetual movement, while recycled iron reflects the spirit of survival and reinvention that characterizes the continent. At the same time, the artist maintains a deep connection to tradition, incorporating elements into his works that evoke ritual masks, ancestral dances, and initiation ceremonies.

Biokou's technique combines improvisation with precision. He works without detailed sketches, allowing the form to emerge from a direct dialogue with the material. Each piece is constructed layer by layer, welding and adjusting the parts until achieving the balance between strength and harmony.

The iron's rough textures and irregular sheen give the sculptures an almost human presence. The artist prefers to preserve the marks of time—rust, stains, and cuts—as a testament to the material's history. His works vary in size: some fit in a room, others occupy public spaces or entire galleries.

But they all share a common energy—that of transforming the banal into the sublime. When viewed from a distance, the sculptures stand out as monuments; up close, they reveal the delicacy of the details and the craftsman's ingenuity. This ambiguity between monumentality and intimacy is one of the most notable characteristics of their style.

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In Simonet Biokou's work, the choice of recycled iron transcends mere economy of means, constituting a conscious, ethical, and spiritual gesture. Iron is a material with memory—it retains weight, temperature, sound, and smell. It was extracted from the earth, shaped by industry, consumed, discarded, and rediscovered. By reusing it, the artist restores its interrupted life cycle.

Each piece of iron is a fragment of a collective history: the history of African modernity, colonization, exploitation, and, crucially, resistance. The symbolism of his sculptures is intrinsically linked to the Vodun universe, where iron is sacred. Ogum, the deity of iron, is the guardian of technology, war, and creation.

By working with this material, Biokou not only pays homage to Ogum but also invokes the spiritual force that iron represents. The sculptures become offerings, mediations between the human and the divine. The process of welding and melting the metals takes on a ritualistic character: the fire purifies, the hammer consecrates, and the artist becomes a priest of the material.

Recycled iron, once a symbol of industrialization and progress, takes on a transfigured meaning when cast into Vodun figures. Biokou subverts the logic of consumption and obsolescence: what the world has discarded, he transforms into objects of contemplation and reverence.

It's a gesture of aesthetic and spiritual redemption, an alchemy where trash becomes memory and fragments become testimony. The artist also proposes a profound reflection on the tension between tradition and modernity. By combining ancestral forms with industrial materials, he bridges two eras.

The Symbol of Oppression

Iron—once a colonial and oppressive instrument—now becomes a tool of creative autonomy. The iron of war transforms into the iron of beauty. Biokou's sculptures articulate this possible reconciliation between past and present, between what was imposed and what is reinvented. Ultimately, there is an unavoidable ecological and political interpretation.

By using waste, the artist exposes the contradictions of the global economic system: Africa, which receives the remains of global consumption, is also the space where this waste is reimagined and converted into culture. Recycled iron becomes a symbol of resistance to the logic of disposal and inequality. Biokou's art demonstrates that waste can be regenerated and that beauty can emerge from ruin.

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Simonet Biokou, the son of a blacksmith, grew up in Porto Novo, immersed in artisanal work and ancestral worship. From a young age, he learned to observe fire, measure forging time, and understand the sound of hammer on anvil. The family workshop functioned simultaneously as a workspace and a temple, where the act of shaping iron was intertwined with the invocation of protective spirits.

During his adolescence, direct contact with iron became an extension of his identity. Young Biokou helped his father repair tools, make agricultural implements, and sometimes produce small decorative pieces for ceremonies.

These formative years gave him a tactile understanding of matter, teaching him to read its tensions and recognize the exact moment when the metal yields and transforms. This intimacy with the material profoundly shaped his worldview, in which artistic creation is inseparable from manual labor, physical effort, and spirituality.

In the 80s, Benin was going through a period of political and economic transition, marked by urban growth and rising unemployment. It was in this context that Biokou, already a skilled craftsman, began experimenting with scrap materials.

The iron abandoned in urban backyards and markets revealed an untapped potential, bearing the marks of modern life and the echo of ancient forging practices.

The Decisive Decade

The 90s were decisive for her career. Simonet Biokou teamed up with two equally talented cousins—Calixte and Théodore Dakpogan—who also came from families of blacksmiths. Together, they began exploring metal sculpture made from recycled materials, at a time when this art form was still undervalued in Benin.

The three artists shared the conviction that scrap metal could be as expressive as bronze or marble and that African ironworking traditions had much to contribute to contemporary art.

The turning point came in 1992 with the Ouidah 92 Festival, one of the most important cultural events in Benin's recent history. The festival celebrated African roots and the Vodun religion, officially recognizing its spiritual and artistic influence.

Biokou presented his first sculptures made exclusively of recycled iron, which captured attention for their hybrid nature: they were simultaneously ritualistic and modern, artisanal and conceptual. The reception was enthusiastic, and the artist became considered one of the promising names in new African sculpture.

In the following years, his work gained international recognition. Exhibitions in France, Belgium, and Canada revealed the symbolic power of his creations to European and American audiences. Critics praised the originality of his method and the expressive power of the figures forged from engines, sheet metal, and chains.

In Liège, Belgium, the Museum of Contemporary Art acquired one of his sculptures, making him the only African recycled iron artist represented in the institution's permanent collection—a rare recognition for a creator from the Vodum cultural space.

From dand 2000

Since the 2000s, Biokou has consolidated his reputation, participating in biennials and international fairs, without ever leaving Porto Novo. The city remains the center of his work and a point of contact with his spiritual origins. The artist continues to work in a neighborhood workshop, using simple tools and locally found materials.

This fidelity to his land and the artisanal process is an essential part of his artistic identity. Biokou's journey reflects a dual trajectory: on the one hand, the technical mastery of an ancient blacksmithing tradition; on the other, a critical awareness of the contemporary world. He is, in a sense, a mediator between two eras: the sacred past and the industrial present.

His non-academic training—based on oral transmission and direct experience—grant him a creative freedom that escapes the conventions of Western art education. For Biokou, iron is not just an expressive medium; it is a living heritage, a body that preserves the memory of ancestors and the hands that shaped it over the centuries.

Today, Simonet Biokou is recognized as one of Benin's greatest sculptors and a leading figure in contemporary African art. His name frequently appears alongside masters of scrap metal sculpture from the continent, such as Romuald Hazoumé and the Dakpogan brothers.

However, he maintains a discreet attitude, faithful to the simplicity of his origins, working surrounded by young apprentices. He teaches them not only welding techniques but also a philosophy: that nothing is truly useless and that art begins when one learns to listen to the material.

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Simonet Biokou's art constitutes an intrinsic response to the world around him. The artist observes the waste of modernity—defunct engines, broken chains, car parts—and glimpses in them a portrait of a society in constant transformation.

By collecting and converting these materials into sculptures, he performs a dual gesture: he denounces waste and reveals the possibility of rebirth. Socially, his work evokes resistance and dignity. His sculptures—firm, dense, sometimes with a warlike appearance—represent men and women overcoming adversity.

The pieces evoke both the ancient blacksmiths of Benin and the workers of modern cities, figures who carry the weight of iron and history. Each weld is an act of symbolic reconstruction, affirming that, even in times of crisis, there is room for creativity and beauty.

The environmental message is equally powerful. By transforming industrial waste into art, Biokou draws attention to the contradictions of an economic system that generates abundance and waste on a vast scale. His sculptures serve as visual reminders that the planet cannot support the cost of consumption forever.

However, his critique isn't expressed in words or slogans, but through iron, gestures, and form, inviting reflection without moralizing. Culturally, Biokou revitalizes the Vodun universe, updating its symbols and demonstrating that tradition can engage with the present. Through his metallic figures, he reinscribes the spiritual into the contemporary sphere.

Deities, spirits, and rituals appear fused with pieces of machinery, as if the modern world also possessed its gods and sacrifices. The Vodun religion, often stigmatized outside of Africa, is presented by the artist as a cultural heritage and source of ecological wisdom.

The Social Dimension

The social dimension of his work also manifests itself in his work. In Porto Novo, Biokou employs and trains local youth, offering them an economic and creative alternative to urban marginalization.

The workshop becomes a space for learning and citizenship, and many of its apprentices end up developing their own projects, inspired by the philosophy of recycling and reuse. Iron, in this context, transcends the material, becoming an instrument of social transformation.

The artist believes that art has a duty to engage with its time. His sculptures address inequality, colonization, loss of identity, and the need for reconciliation. By reusing iron—a material associated with violence, war, and exploitation—Biokou transforms it into a symbol of reconstruction.

His message is universal: creation can arise from destruction, and beauty can blossom from ruin. In several interviews, Biokou has emphasized that his goal is not only to create aesthetically beautiful works, but to spark awareness.

Each piece is a testament to the human capacity for reinvention, a reminder that in Benin, almost everything can be reused—from scrap metal to the most ancient beliefs. This philosophy of repurposing, so deeply rooted in African life, becomes, in their hands, an aesthetic language and an ethical proposition.

Finally, there is an implicit political message: by transforming the remains of industrialization—much of it coming from automobiles imported from Europe—Biokou returns Africa to the leading role in this matter.

He reappropriates symbols of Western modernity and reconverts them into African expression. Iron, once a symbol of economic dependence, becomes an emblem of creative autonomy. Thus, his work is simultaneously an artistic act and a gesture of decolonization.

Simonet Biokou's work is part of the contemporary African art movement that reclaims its own voice, free from intermediaries or exoticism. Distinguishing himself from artists who adapt to the demands of the international market, Biokou forges his path through the coherence between origin and expression.

Recycled iron is his manifesto: hard, heavy, but deeply charged with memory and humanity. In a world dominated by a throwaway culture, the Beninese artist creates an aesthetic of permanence. He demonstrates that the abandoned can become sacred and ruins can become symbols of hope.

His sculptures are, in a way, monuments to resistance—of matter, spirit, and culture. The power of his art lies in the simplicity of the gesture: collecting, transforming, returning. This triad contains a moral and aesthetic lesson: to collect is to recognize the value of the forgotten; to transform is an act of creativity; to return is to share with the community.

Biokou accomplishes these steps with humility and precision, creating works that belong both to his people and to the world. At contemporary art fairs in Paris, Brussels, and Montreal, his sculptures are presented as examples of the new African sensibility—an art that engages with sustainability, spirituality, and postcolonial critique.

However, for the artist himself, international recognition is a mere consequence; the essential thing, in his words, is that the iron continues to speak. To follow Simonet Biokou's path is to immerse oneself in a universe where tradition is renewed and the roughest material becomes a metaphor for life.

Create Without Destroying

The iron he shapes retains the echo of ancient blacksmiths and the roar of urban engines; it carries the weight of history and the breath of the future. His sculptures remind us that art is not defined by the nobility of materials, but by the nobility of the gaze. At a time when African cities face serious environmental challenges, his practice is a model of sustainability.

The artist demonstrates that it is possible to create without destruction, to produce beauty from reuse, and to make iron a symbol of hope. His work, born from waste, offers the world a lesson in symbolic and ecological economy: nothing is lost when there is imagination and respect for matter. Ultimately, Simonet Biokou is a poet of iron.

His sculptures are metal verses, written with fire and patience, that speak of the human condition, faith, and survival. He transforms discarded material into art, noise into contemplative silence, rust into brilliance. His message is clear: the future of art, and perhaps of humanity, depends on the ability to reinvent what already exists, to recognize the value of the forgotten, and to transform trash into heritage.

See also

The Art of Trash: Mudungaze and the Masks that Tell Stories

The Art of Trash: Dickens Otieno, Weaving Art with Metal Cans

The Art of Trash: El Anatsui, Between Tradition and Globalization

The Art of Trash: Moffat Takadiwa, Textiles of Waste

The Art of Trash: Henri Sagna and the Talking Mosquito

The Art of Trash: Simonet Biokou, The Forge of Tradition

The Art of Trash: Nnenna Okore, Sculpting the Organic

The Art of Trash: Gonçalo Mabunda, Speaking of Peace

The Art of Trash: Johnson Zuze, Redefining Chaos

The Art of Trash: Sokari Douglas Camp, Sculpting Oil

The Art of Trash: Romuald Hazoumè, Reinvented Bins

The Art of Trash: Pekiwa, Doors, Wood and Sea

The Art of Trash: Dotun Popoola, The Force of Metal

The Art of Trash: Cyrus Kabiru and Afrofuturism

The Art of Trash: Mbongeni Buthelezi Painting with Plastic

The Art of Trash: Chibuike Ifedilichukwu, Rejected Memory

The Art of Trash: Ifeoma U. Anyaeji and Plasto-Art

Picture: © 2025 Francisco Lopes-Santos