Regula Tschumi facts for kids

Regula Tschumi is a Swiss expert who studies people and their cultures (a social anthropologist) and also knows a lot about art history. She is famous for her research on special art from Africa, especially unique coffins and palanquins from Ghana.

About Regula Tschumi

Regula Tschumi has traveled to East, West, and South Africa to study contemporary African art. This means she looks at art made in Africa in recent times.

Her Work on Figurative Coffins

In 2006, Regula Tschumi wrote an important book about figurative coffins made by the Ga people in Ghana. These are special coffins shaped like animals, cars, or other objects. In her book, she explored where these coffins came from. She looked into how they connect to the art and religious beliefs of the Ga people.

Through her research, Regula Tschumi found a talented artist named Ataa Oko. He was born in 1919 in La, Ghana. Ataa Oko was making these unique figurative coffins as early as 1945. This was even before another artist, Kane Kwei, who many people outside Ghana thought had "invented" these coffins. Regula Tschumi's work helped show Ataa Oko's important role in this art form.

Discovering Figurative Palanquins

In 2013, for her PhD, Regula Tschumi did deep research on figurative palanquins of the Ga people. These palanquins are like special chairs or beds carried by people, often used by chiefs or important leaders. Before her work, not much was known about them.

She found that these figurative palanquins are closely related to the figurative coffins. She also discovered that they were used in Accra, Ghana, as early as 1930. Regula Tschumi learned that, contrary to what some Ga people believed, chiefs were never buried in their actual palanquins. Palanquins are very important royal symbols that are never buried in Ga culture. Instead, kings were buried in coffins that looked exactly like their palanquins. This was important because the Ga people believe that ceremonies for becoming a chief and funeral ceremonies are connected.

Exhibitions and Collaborations

Regula Tschumi has also helped with many art exhibitions in major museums. She has worked with several Ghanaian artists and makers of these special coffins and palanquins. Some of these artists include Paa Joe, Ataa Oko, and Kudjoe Affutu. Her work helps share this amazing African art with people around the world.

Images for kids

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  White chicken coffin made by Kudjoe Affutu (2008)

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  Ataa Oko and Kudjoe Affutu with Oko's red rooster coffin for Regula Tschumi (2009)

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  The „Pompidou coffin“ made by Kudjoe Affutu in collaboration with Regula Tschumi for an exhibition in the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2010)

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  Paa Joe with his sandals coffin made for the Kunstmuseum Bern (2006)

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  Figurative palanquin, drawing by Ataa Oko for Regula Tschumi (2010)