Fort William-Anomabu

Paa Joe
b. 1947, Akwapim, Eastern Region, Ghana
Works in Pobiman, Greater Accra Region, Ghana
Fort William-Anomabu
2004–5; made in Nungua, Ghana
Wood, enamel paint
Gift of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, in memory of Claude Simard, 2014-14-1

Paa Joe is one of the best-known innovators of an art form that has developed outside Accra—"fantasy coffins” (abebu adekai) sculpted in forms that memorialize their future residents’ key accomplishments in life. Abebu adekai not only carry their occupants into the next life in style, but leave a searing, visual memory of an image to embody the deceased’s memory long after their physical bodies have been returned to the earth. In this style, Paa Joe created a series of architectural models of Ghana’s coastal forts—global sites of memory, conscience, and loss. In the 17th and 18th centuries these buildings became repositories for bodies themselves—the bodies of African men, women, and children who were captured and converted into commodities in the dehumanizing international trade in enslaved labor.