Regula Tschumi is a Swiss social anthropologist and art historian.
Regula Tschumi has spent time in East, West and South Africa, researching into contemporary African art. [1] In 2006 she published a standard work on the figurative coffins of the Ga people. [2] In this book she traces the origins of these coffins in the art and religion of the Ga, and questions the history of their evolution. In the course of this research Regula Tschumi discovered the coffin-artist and art brut painter Ataa Oko, born 1919, from La, in Ghana. Ataa Oko was making figurative coffins as long ago as 1945, that is to say, according to her, before Kane Kwei, who was generally recognised outside Ghana as having "invented" these coffins for the burial rituals of the Ga. [3] In her PhD thesis 2013 Regula Tschumi makes the first deep research about the formerly unknown figurative palanquins of the Ga. She shows how the figurative palanquins are related with the figurative coffins, and why the figurative palanquins were used in Accra as early as 1930. She discovered that differently from what many Ga believe, no chief has ever been buried in his figurative palanquin. Palanquins belong to the powerful royal insignias which in the Ga culture may never be buried. Therefore, kings were not buried in their palanquin, but in a coffin that looked the same like their palanquin. This was necessary because the Ga believe that enstoolments and funerals are complementary. [4]
Regula Tschumi has taken part in various exhibition projects in leading museums, [5] when she worked with different Ghanaian artists and coffin-palanquin-makers like Paa Joe, Ataa Oko and Kudjoe Affutu among others.
Francis Kwame Nkrumah was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast from 1952 until 1957, when it gained independence from Britain. He was then the first Prime Minister and then the President of Ghana, from 1957 until 1966. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.
A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, for either burial or cremation.
The Ga-Dangbe, Ga-Dangme, Ga-Adangme or Ga-Adangbe are an ethnic group in Ghana, Togo and Benin. The Ga or Gan and Dangbe or Dangme people are grouped as part of the Ga–Dangme ethnolinguistic group. The Ga-Dangmes are one ethnic group that lives primarily in the Greater Accra region of Ghana.
The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of people. Smaller litters may take the form of open chairs or beds carried by two or more carriers, some being enclosed for protection from the elements. Larger litters, for example those of the Chinese emperors, may resemble small rooms upon a platform borne upon the shoulders of a dozen or more people. To most efficiently carry a litter, porters either place the carrying poles directly upon their shoulders or use a yoke to transfer the load from the carrying poles to the shoulders.
Teshie is a coastal town in the Ledzokuku Municipal District, a district in the Greater Accra Region of southeastern Ghana. Teshie is the ninth most populous settlement in Ghana, with a population of 171,875 people.
Articles related to Ghana include:
Owusu-Ankomah is a leading contemporary African artist with origins in Ghana. His work addresses themes of identity and the body, using his trademark motif of Adinkra symbolism. His work is also "influenced by the art of the Renaissance, handwritten texts from ancient cultures such as the adinkra symbol system of the Akan people of Ghana, Chinese ideograms, and contemporary global cultures." Owusu-Ankomah is a trained artist from Achimota College, near Accra, "established in 1936 and in 1952 incorporated into the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi."
Eric Adjetey Anang is a Ghanaian sculptor and fantasy coffin carpenter. He was born in Teshie, Ghana and runs the Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop. He currently maintains dual residency and splits his time between Ghana and Madison, Wisconsin, where he is pursuing unique projects.
The Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop is a studio established in Teshie, Ghana, since the 1950s. It is known for its design coffins that became symbolic of African artistic creativity. It featured the talents of several artists who would go on to gain fame as fantasy coffin sculptors, including Paa Joe, Kane Kwei, Eric Kwei, Cedi Kwei, and the lead of the shop at Kane Kwei's death, Theophilius Nii Anum Sowah.
Contemporary African art is commonly understood to be art made by artists in Africa and the African diaspora in the post-independence era. However, there are about as many understandings of contemporary African art as there are curators, scholars and artists working in that field. All three terms of this "wide-reaching non-category [sic]" are problematic in themselves: What exactly is "contemporary", what makes art "African", and when are we talking about art and not any other kind of creative expression?
Kudjoe Affutu is a Ghanaian artist and figurative coffin and palanquin builder. He was born and still lives in Awutu Bawyiase, Central Region, Ghana. Affutu has made a name for himself in Europe by participating in various art projects and exhibitions.
Ataa Oko Addo was a Ghanaian builder of figurative palanquins and figurative coffins, and at over 80 years of age he became a painter of Art Brut.
Fantasycoffins or figurative coffins, also called “FAVs” and custom, fantastic, or proverbial coffins, are functional coffins made by specialized carpenters in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. These colorful objects, which developed out of figurative palanquins, are not only coffins but considered works of art. They were shown for the first time to a wider Western public in the exhibition Les Magiciens de la terre at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1989. The seven coffins shown in Paris were made by Kane Kwei (1922–1992) and his former assistant Paa Joe. Since then, coffins by Kane Kwei, his grandson Eric Adjetey Anang, Paa Joe, Daniel Mensah, Kudjoe Affutu, Theophilus Nii Anum Sowah, Benezate, and other artists have been displayed in international art museums and galleries around the world.
Paa Joe is a Ghanaian sculptor, and figurative palanquin and fantasy coffin carpenter. Joe is considered one of the most important Ghanaian coffin or abebuu adekai artists of his generation. He has been involved in the international art world since 1989, and has been included in major exhibitions in Europe, Japan, and the USA. His fantasy coffins are in the collections and on permanent display in many art museums worldwide, including the British Museum in London, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka and many others as well as the private collections of foreign dignitaries. Joe is building an art academy and gallery to support the community and art students across the globe.
Daniel Mensah, also known as Hello, is a Ga carpenter and fantasy coffin artist. He works as an independent artist and carpenter in Teshie, Greater Accra, Ghana.
A figurative palanquin connected with the totem of its owner is a special kind of litter used in the Greater Accra Region in Ghana. These palanquins called in the Ga language okadi akpakai belong to the royal insignias and are used only by the Ga kings or mantsemei and their sub-chiefs when they are carried in public at durbars and festivals like Homowo. With these figurative palanquins the Ga create ethnic differences between themselves and their Akan neighbours that only use simple boat- or chair-shaped litters.
Saâdane Afif is a French conceptual artist.
Luboš Plný is a Czech painter and conceptual artist, usually classified as a creator of art brut. His work can be found in many important collections in the Czech Republic and elsewhere. He is the only Czech artist invited to the 2017 international exhibition Viva Arte Viva! at the 57th Venice Biennale. He lives and works in Prague.
A Ghanaian film poster is a film poster hand-painted in Ghana used to advertise films produced in Ghana as well as world cinema. Ghanaian film posters, particularly hand-painted posters from the 1980s and 1990s, have become noted for their imaginative and unique artistry. They have been exhibited around the world in galleries and museums in Los Angeles, New York, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Chicago, and across Europe.
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