{"id":24652,"date":"2024-04-09T07:16:21","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T11:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=24652"},"modified":"2024-04-09T07:21:42","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T11:21:42","slug":"paa-joe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/04\/09\/paa-joe\/","title":{"rendered":"Paa Joe\u2019s Fantasy Coffins Are Symbols Of Your Life To Carry You Into Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1960, when Joseph Tetteh-Ashong was 15, he began an apprenticeship in coffin-making with his mother\u2019s cousin, Seth Kane Kwei. The training led\u00a0 Tetteh-Ashong, or Paa Joe, as he\u2019s become known, to become one of the most celebrated fantasy coffin makers of the Ga community residing in several villages around Ghana\u2019s capital city, Accra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are buried in Ghana according\u00a0to their profession whilst alive or what they were addicted to,\u201d Paa Joe told FAD magazine in 2015<\/a>. \u201cThe photographer is buried in a camera while a business tycoon is buried in a Mercedes, Porsche, vintage car or a Ferrari. A king or a family leader is buried in a lion, eagle, fallen tree, rooster or a stool believing life still continues after death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paa Joe\u2019s fame for crafting these \u201cabeduu adeka,\u201d or proverb boxes, led to him being featured in the 1989 exhibition \u201cLes Magiciens de la Terre\u201d at Paris\u2019 Centre Pompidou. Which launched his parallel career as sort of pop artist featured in Western museums and galleries\u2014including Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts and Salem\u2019s Peabody Essex Museum.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new exhibition \u201cCelestial City\u201d\u2014at <\/em>Superhouse gallery, 120 Walker St., New York, from March 13 to April 27, 2024\u2014celebrates the \u201ccity itself, creating a portrait of the Big Apple through objects emblematic of the five boroughs,\u201d according to the gallery. The exhibition features two human-scale coffins, one shaped like one of New York\u2019s iconic yellow taxis and one shaped like a giant Heinz ketchup bottle. The exhibition also includes replicas of Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s Guggenheim Museum, a Herm\u00e8s Birkin handbag, a bagel with a schmear, the Statue of Liberty, a hotdog, an overflowing trash can, and one of the city\u2019s, um, beloved subway rats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Paa
Paa Joe exhibition \u201cCelestial City” at Superhouse, New York, 2024. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the early 1950s, Paa Joe\u2019s uncle Kwei (1922\u20131992) had pioneered the fantasy coffin when crafting a ceremonial palanquin in the shape of a cocoa pod for a chief. \u201cWhen the chief passed away during its construction, it was repurposed as his coffin,\u201d Superhouse writes. \u201cThis innovative art form quickly gained popularity, and Kane Kwei began creating bespoke commissions resembling living and inanimate objects, symbolizing the deceased individual’s identity (an onion for a farmer, an eagle for a community leader, a sardine for a fisherman, etc.).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paa Joe worked with Kwei until 1972, when Paa Joe moved to the coast for two years to carve boats, according to Atlanta\u2019s High Museum<\/a>. With the money he made, he opened Paa Joe Coffin Works in Nungua in 1976. His workshop\u2014which relocated to Pobiman, in the Greater Accra region, in 2008\u2014has produced more than 2,000 coffins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I go to sleeping,\u201d Paa Joe told the BBC in 2019<\/a>, \u201cno sleeping. I\u2019m at work in the mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by\u00a0contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And\u00a0sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a>\u00a0so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2024 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Paa
Paa Joe. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Guggenheim” and “Yellow Cab,” 2024, emele wood, enamel, cloth, acrylic. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Yellow Cab,” 2024, wood, enamel, cloth, acrylic. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Yellow Cab,” 2024, wood, enamel, cloth, acrylic. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Yellow Cab,” 2024, wood, enamel, cloth. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Heinz,” 2024, wood, enamel, cloth. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Heinz,” 2024, wood, enamel, cloth. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Subway Rat,” 2023, wood, enamel, cloth. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Yellow Cab,” 2024, and “NYC Department of Sanitation,” 2023, emele wood, enamel, cloth, acrylic. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Lady Liberty,” 2024, wood, enamel. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Front Page,” 2024, emele wood, enamel, cloth. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Bagel with Schmear,” 2024, wood, enamel, cloth. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Birkin,” 2024, wood, enamel, foam, metal lock.(Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe exhibition \u201cCelestial City” at Superhouse, New York, 2024. (Superhouse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Fantasy coffin (abebui adera) in the form of an eagle,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Paa
Paa Joe, “Christiansborg Castle\u2014Accra. 1661 Denmark, 1679 Portugal, 1850 Britain,” 2004\u20132005 and 2017. On view in the 2020 exhibition “Gates of No Return” at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1960, when Joseph Tetteh-Ashong was 15, he began an apprenticeship in coffin-making with his mother\u2019s cousin, Seth Kane Kwei. The training led\u00a0 Tetteh-Ashong, or Paa Joe, as he\u2019s become known, to become one of the most celebrated fantasy coffin makers of the Ga community residing in several villages around Ghana\u2019s capital city, Accra. \u201cPeople […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,1008],"tags":[56,1014,1243,1244],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24652"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24684,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24652\/revisions\/24684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}