The Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop is a studio established in Teshie, Ghana, since the Fifties. It is known for its Design Coffins that became symbolic of African artistic creativity.

Seth Kane Kwei ( 1922–1992 ) was a carpenter joiner established in Teshie, in the suburbs of Accra in Ghana. He is considered as the inventor at the beginning of 1950s of the design coffins or fantasy coffins, called Abebuu adekai (" boxes with proverbs ") by Ga people that is the dominant ethnic group of the region of Accra. The use of these coffins during the burial in Ga country became widespread from the beginning 1960s, becoming de facto a real tradition. Design coffins are acknowledged as symbolic of the contemporary creation in Africa.
At the death of Kane Kwei, his son Sowah took over the workshop, then Cedi - junior child of Kane Kwei- after the death of Sowah in 1999. Since 2005, Eric Adjetey Anang (born 1985, son of Cedi) attempts to revitalize the creativity of the studio by the introduction of new models, the creation of furniture realized in the same spirit and with the same techniques as the coffins.
About ten carpenter's workshops established in Teshie and in the region of Accra produce similar coffins. Among them, we find Tei in Dorwanya, Lay and Hello in Teshie, Tetteh in Amasaman and Tetteh Red in Ningo. Their bosses are former apprentices of Kane Kwei or his successors. Furthermore there are the workshops of Kudjoe Affutu and the master craftsmen Paa Joe and Paa Willie in Nungua, both of them trained carpenters at Kane Kwei's, before they opened their own shops.

The Kane Kwei workshop uses light wood as wawa (white wood) or emien for the coffins intended for funerals. Those dedicated to the export as artworks are made from harder and more expensive wood as limba or African Mahogany.
The Kane Kwei workshop is profoundly anchored in the Ga tradition, both by the genesis of its productions, by protocols framing their local use, and by its kind of functioning based on apprentices, which number can reach about ten. At the end of the apprenticeship which lasts from two to five years, a traditional ceremony is organized. In this occasion, the apprentice has to pay a sum of money, donate alcoholic drinks, a parasol, a pair of sandals to the boss of the workshop and a certificate is put handed to him.
The manufacturing process of coffin begins by the scrupulous observation of visual documents reproducing the considered model - even of the very model, an alive hen for example - at once followed by its performance in three dimensions. Neither plans nor sketches are realized in prerequisite to their manufacturing.
If some units had been acquired in the 70s by some American gallery owners (Vivian Burns in 1973, Ernie Wolfe, both from Los Angeles) it is from 1989 when these objects reached an international gratitude recognition as oeuvres of art.
Their successive displays in the exhibitions Magiciens de la terre (1989, Musée National d'Art Moderne (Centre Georges Pompidou), Paris and Grande Halle de la Villette, Paris - Curator Jean-Hubert Martin) and "Africa Explores" (1992, New Museum of Modern Art, New York - Curator Susan Vogel) were release mechanisms of this recognition. On the initiative of the Studio, artistic partnerships with western structures were implemented and residences of foreign artists organized.

Coffins created by Kane Kwei Carpentry Workshop - not exhaustive list

Group exhibitions

Solo exhibitions