Meet Ghana's Top Fantasy Coffin Artist

A Lion Shaped Coffin 

Joe, who turned 69 this week, is Ghana’s most prolific coffin artist and, after five decades in the funeral industry producing some of the world’s most extravagant designs, his work is being celebrated in a major exhibition in Accra.



His work has been bought by US presidents and appears in museum collections all over the world – and yet most of Paa Joe’s creations are buried six feet underground.

Joe’s work – which includes coffins in the shape of Porsches, naked women, Nike trainers, cameras, Coca-Cola bottles and chilli peppers – is designed to represent the life of the deceased, with each item handcrafted and painted for the funeral procession, which can last up to three days and three nights.

Working with curator Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, Joe and his son Jacob have developed an exhibition that explores the traditions behind the fantasy coffins and their particular popularity within the Ga community in Ghana, where this unique custom began.

“People celebrate death in Ghana. At a funeral, we have a passion for the person leaving us – there are a lot of people, and a lot of noise,” says Jacob, 28, who has worked with his father for eight years.

Joe’s creations have attracted high-profile fans: Jacob recalls visits from Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, and the ex-US president Jimmy Carter, who reportedly purchased two coffins. Bill Clinton also stopped by during an official state visit to Ghana in 1998.

Joe discovered coffin-making when he was 16, when his mother sent him to do an apprenticeship in the Ga fishing community of Teshie. His uncles, Ajetey and Kane Kwei, were prominent fantasy coffin makers in the area in the 1950s, and Joe worked with Kane for 12 years before returning to Accra in 1976 to establish his own workshop.

But demand has since slowed, Jacob says. “In Accra, when it was blowing up, we would make up to 10 coffins a month,” he says. Now, the pair – who work alone at their workshop in Pobiman, 15 miles from the capital – create about two a month, though the more complex designs can take longer.

The local price for a coffin for conventional use is equivalent to about £1,500, depending on the commission. Those created for exhibitions can fetch up to £8,000.

But while Joe’s work has received international recognition – displayed at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the British Museum and the V&A in London, as well as the Brooklyn Museum in New York – he has endured financial hardship at home and was forced to move his workshop out of central Accra to cheaper premises in 2008.

After the UK screening, Joe received his biggest commission to date: a request for a Chevrolet Stingray convertible with room for two people.

With the renewed interest in Joe’s work, Jacob is thinking about how his father’s legacy can be protected.

“We are interested in teaching students from abroad, either in Ghana or Europe, and we’re hoping to establish some kind of residency,” he says.

But Joe is not hanging up his tools just yet. He continues to produce caskets at his workshop but says when he does eventually require one himself, he would like his coffin to be in the shape of a hammer.

A individual is often buried in a coffin that symbolizes his career on earth 

The Guardian UK