Teshie fantasy coffin workshops

Teshie's fantasy coffin workshops are working carpentry studios in Teshie, a coastal Ga community on the south-eastern fringes of Accra. Here carpenters build figurative "design coffins", known in Ga as abebuu adekai, or "boxes with proverbs", and also as okadi adekai. These are not museum displays: they are active businesses where coffins are made to order.

The tradition is credited to Ga carpenter Seth Kane Kwei (1922–1992), who was making furniture in Teshie when he began producing such coffins. The founding account holds that he built an aeroplane coffin for his grandmother, who had wished to travel abroad, and later a fish coffin for a fisherman. Around ten such workshops operate in Teshie and the wider Accra region, most owned by former apprentices of Kane Kwei, among them Paa Joe, Daniel Mensah ("Hello") in Teshie, and the Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop, now run by Eric Adjetey Anang.

Coffins are carved by hand, without plans or sketches. Lighter wawa or emien wood is used for local funerals, while harder limba or mahogany is used for coffins exported as artworks. Interiors are lined, and exteriors are polished, sprayed and painted. Designs reflect the deceased's profession, status, vice or aspiration — a fish for a fisherman, a pen for a writer, an eagle for a chief — and some derive from Ga proverbs whose meaning is opaque to outsiders.

Visitors may watch artisans at work in the dusty yards among wood shavings. Because these are working premises rather than attractions, some workshops do not permit photography unless a purchase is being made; it is worth asking before taking pictures.

The Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop states that it is located in Teshie-Nungua, adjacent to the Melcom and Total filling station on Teshie Road; third-party listings give the address as "Teshie First Junction by Total Gas Station, Teshie". Teshie is a coastal suburb of Accra in the Greater Accra Region, within Ledzokuku Municipal, near La Beach. Opening hours, admission arrangements and whether individual workshops accept visitors are not confirmed by the available sources, so these should be checked directly before travelling.