Rest in peace of art?

Last journey in style – Russia is astounded as two coffins made by an African craftsman are traveling from a museum in Siberia to a Moscow exhibition. One coffin is a fish. Guess what shape the other one is.

The far from ordinary sarcophagus was made by Eric Agetei Anang, a Ghanaian craftsman, for the museum of global mortuary culture in Novosibirsk. His fish coffin has a decent match. Eric has also carved a Russian specialty, Vodka-bottle-shaped one.

When Eric arrived in Novosibirsk in July to shape these two pieces of one way transport, his prototype for the other coffin was a Coca-Cola bottle. But this idea was later replaced by the Vodka bottle to symbolize one of the causes behind the high death rate in Russia. Soon the coffins will be on their way for a Moscow exhibition, Nekropol-2011, on October 25-27.

In Ghana, funerals may be a time of mourning, but also of celebration, as the people of the coastal African republic believe that death is just a door into yet another life.

To celebrate the way the deceased person lived, a brightly colored coffin is crafted. The coffin is to represent an aspect of the dead person’s life: a car for a driver or a hammer for a woodworker. But it can also symbolize some vice, like a bottle of beer or a cigarette.