Fantasy coffin

The imagination need not be limited by death: If you lived among the Ga people of Ghana, you could be buried in a giant cell-phone coffin, a cacao pod, or anything else related to your profession or social standing. This tradition was started in the 1950s by two artists trained in European carpentry. From the 1980s on, several workshops have produced coffins solely for the local and international art market, like this lobster coffin, pieced together from dozens of parts, covered with plaster, and sprayed with acrylic paint, a “fantasy coffin” never intended for burial.