Boxed: Fabulous Coffins from UK and Ghana at the Southbank Centre during Death Fetival

This weekend the Southbank Centre is host to an interesting Festival called 'Death: Southbank Centre's festival for the Living'. Through music, workshops, literature and installations, and talking with everyone from philosophers to funeral workers, attitudes towards death and why we are so reticent to talk about it will be examined.
As part of the festival the exhibition 'Boxed: Fabulous Coffins from UK and Ghana' is a vibrant collection of bespoke coffins from the famous Pa Joe workshop in Ghana and Crazy Coffins in Nottingham on show in the foyers of the Royal Festival Hall. What beauties!
The exhibition is open until the 29th of January.

Made from solid elm, this egg shaped coffin was designed for a woman who plans to be buried in a foetal position as a symbol and celebration of birth and reincarnation.

This replica of the Oseberg Viking Ship was commissioned by a lady who believed she was from Viking stock. Before the order was confirmed, it was withdrawn, however due to its beauty and their often over-subscribed orders of boats for funerals Vic Fearns Ltd proceeded with the build.

specially created to commemorate an exhibition of 'Crazy Coffins' in Cork,  The Corkscrew imagines what a wine connoisseur may wish to be buried in

The family of a teenage boy, killed in a domestic accident, chose to bury him in a replica of the guitar he loved.

John Gratton-Fisher, a building contractor, plans to be buried in a skip in celebration of his livelihood.

Commissioned by ballet fan Pat Cox, a nurse and music teacher. 'I spent a lot of time with my grandfather as a child. He played the piano at Shepsherd Ballet School. I sat and watched the feet of the ballerinas going through their steps. It's my oldest memory'.

This is a replica of a coffin commisioned by the family of an eleven year old boy, tragically a victim of a skateboarding accident , in memory of the skateboard he loved playing on every day.

Commissioned by a former aurenautical engineer Malcolm Brocklehurst. He requested that the plane's wings and wheels could detach so that the 'coffin' could fit into his local crematorium.