Wake
Pitt Rivers Museum 5th October
2011: A Ghanaian coffin designed to celebrate its owner’s life and ambitions.
Amongst the
Victoriana, hieroglyphic tablets ponder,
two
exhibited dead eyes that have viewed
a trillion
sunrises, with glyphs that silently scream.
Cornered sentinel
candles provide
unreflected
light. The cloaked over-mantel mirror
fails to
reflect parade-ground ladder-backed chairs,
veiled
women, frock-coated men, sherry in hand.
Central to the scene, confined, the Ghanaian
Grocer
and a coffin decked in the colours of Africa.
A casket proclaiming
a life’s work, a toy shop with windows of
adverts
for porridge, toothpaste, energy drinks,
washing powder and margarine.
A toy shop with a grey corrugated roof.
A toy shop with a full sized occupant.
A toy shop that shrieks vitality and achievement, a biography.
In a hushed atmosphere that rings with muted
minted voices,
rested on white ruched silk cushions, the
shopkeeper
in a make-believe shop surrounded by
Victoriana.
Glasses
rested, the reverent middle orders watch as their friend,
their
colleague, their peer, is carried to that final rest.
