Soap Magazine
abebuu adekai have become a fashionable way to celebrate a death.
Each coffin symbolizes some aspect of the deceased: what they did for a living, their hopes, their vices. Some convey high degrees of respect and honor toward the deceased. A fantasy coffin in the shape of an antelope commemorates a wise person; the eagle is reserved for people of prominence. Fish are very popular designs – the fishing industry is big here – as are Bibles, the only fantasy coffins allowed in churches in this deeply religious country.
London gallerist Jack Bell has argued that abebuu adekai recall the work of celebrated contemporary American artist Jeff Koons. The fantasy coffins play with the idea of scale by spectacularly reimagining objects of the everyday and awarding them near iconic status. As the market for fantasy coffins grows, novelty carpentry is steadily being transformed into contemporary art.
Anang is leading that charge. In 2014, while in Philadelphia, he built a coffin in the shape of a fish and filled it with plastic to address the problem of waste. During a recent trip to the United States, where he was artist-in-residence at the University of Madison – Wisconsin, Anang built a coffin in the shape of a gun to draw attention to the global epidemic of gun violence. The strangest commission the coffin shop has gotten, Anang says, was a coffin shaped like a seahorse for a man from Florida.
Design plans for an upcoming piece.
Photo: Theophilus Mensah
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