Regula Tschumi Photography Publications
Photographs in Publications
Photographs in Newspapers, Magazines, Journals and books (selection)
Apartamento Magazine, SP; Internazionale, IT; Eyeshot Magazine, IT; EineWelt, BRD; GEO, BRD; Welt am Sonntag, BRD; Science & Vie, FR; Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, BRD; ARTMAPP, BRD; Drunter & Drüber, BRD; Selvedge Magazine, GB; Art Africa, SA; African Arts, USA; Art Forum, USA; Courrier Japon, J; Panorama, IT; Das Magazin, CH; Africa e Mediterraneo, IT; L’Illustré, CH; Zeitpunkt, CH;
Paa Joe in an interview with Apartamento Accra
The Ghanaian coffin artist Paa Joe is featured in the Apartamento magazine 2021/22 with 17 archive photos taken by Regula Tschumi.
Women Street Photographers
Published at Prestel 2021
With a rising number of women througout the world picking up their cameras and capturing their surroundings, this book explores the work of 100 women and the experiences behind their greatest images. The volume is curated by Gulnara Samoilova.
Regula Tschumi is part of this book project and her photograph is also on the back cover.
Bunte Trauer (Colorful grief)
EineWelt March-May 2021
Stefan Rambow interviews Regula Tschumi about the colourful mourning rituals in Ghana and the use of the figurative coffins (German), with photographs by Regula Tschumi.
Taz
Petra Schellen interviews R. Tschumi for the Newspaper Taz 21.3.20 (German):
"People celebrate colorful life at the funeral"
Lions, tigers, high-heeled shoes, sometimes a pepper: The current moving exhibition “Mourning. From loss and change” in the Kunsthalle Hamburg presents, among other things, figurative coffins used mainly by people belonging to an old religion in southern Ghana, which continues to exist alongside Christianity.
The buried treasures of the Ga. Coffin art in Ghana
Text & photographs R. Tschumi
Edition Till Schaap, Berne 2014 (2008)
For some fifty years, the Ga of Greater Accra in southern Ghana have produced coffins in the shape of animals, fruits and status symbols. This unique practice is explored in depth here for the first time in a publication featuring a scholarly text and informative illustrations.
Heute Journal ZDF
German ZDF News channel interviews Ulrike Neurath, Regula Tschumi & Martin Wenzel in the Museum für Sepulkralkultur in Kassel (German) 12.8.2019:
"Swiss photographer Regula Tschumi is fascinated by the funeral rituals of the Ga people in Ghana, she is especially interested in their creative coffins. For the Ga, death is a transition and no the end, the bereaved show more joy than tears", ZDF.
Concealed Art. The figurative palanquins and coffins of Ghana
Text & photographs R. Tschumi, Edition Till Schaap, Berne 2014
In this book, Regula Tschumi questions the art world’s established interpretation of the figurative coffins. She also examines for the first time those figurative palanquins, little-known in western art, and shows that they were the forerunners of the figurative coffins.
Ataa Oko et les Esprits / Ataa Oko and the Spirits
A Film by Philippe Lespinasse, Regula Tschumi & Andress Alvarez: Lausanne/Le Tourne, 2009.
Ataa Oko (1919) of Ghana suddenly took up drawing at the age of eighty-three. At first, it was from memory that he drew the personalized figurative coffins that he had once built as a carpenter craftsman, CAB.
Website contributions
Buried Treasures: Coffin Art in Ghana
Apartamento magazine
An interview with Regula Tschumi about her work in Ghana, about the history of the figurative coffins and palanquins, and about the work of some of the most important and innovative young coffin artists in the Greater Accra and in the Central Region.
The text and the photographs are by ©Regula Tschumi.
Ghanaian Coffins, Centre Pompidou, and Coca-Cola
East.East-West
How a local ritual craft turned into an export commodity.
An article about the story told by Kane Kwei (1928-1992) and his family and retold by many Western authors about the origin of the Ghanaian fancy coffins, and how Regula Tschumi’s PhD research disproved this popular version.
UPphotographrs
upphotographers.com 2020
UpPhotographers Interviews Regula Tschumi about:
Who - What - Where - When - Why
Swiss photographer Regula Tschumi's tryst with fantasy coffins where Art meets Death
We The World Magazine
By Debrani Das 19.8.2020
There is something unusual about coffins that look far too livelier than the very purpose it is made for.
Im Huhn begraben / Buried in a Chicken
A video of Fabian Biasio in collaboration with Regula Tschumi, 2018.
In Ghana, the shape of coffins make people: With their fantastic shapes, they are a final greeting from the grave. A car for the chauffeur, a cow for the farmer or a camera for the photographer pay tribute to the deceased. Europeans know the coffin art from Ghana as a bizarre burial culture with a penchant for extravagance. But the coffins hold a secret.
Día de Muertos in Mexico – Einladung an die Toten in Mexiko / Invitation to the Dead
Photos from Mexico by Regula Tschumi, Video by Fabian Biasio (German) 2016
Construis-moi un cercueil (Create me a Coffin)
réformés.ch/culture
French, Nov. 2018
Marie Destraz (Protestinfo) in conversation with R. Tschumi:
The Ga, an ethnic group from southern Ghana, bury their dead in coffins shaped like hens or trucks. Regula Tschumi, ethnologist, art historian and photographer gave a lecture on figurative art that has become a tradition among Christians too, at Cité Seniors in Geneva, on the Day of the Dead.
A Coffin in the Shape of a Hummer Car
Video by I. Bozsa in collaboration with Regula Tschumi for the Museum der Kulturen Basle, 2016.
As reaction to the impact of missionaries and colonial administrations on the local funeral practices, the Ga of Southern Ghana developed a new coffin culture. Coffins are crafted in a wide range of different forms: Popular figures are related to the job of the deceased or their desires during lifetime, MKB.
Awards
Nominations
2022
International Biennial of Photography IV in Guayaquil, Ecquador
Finalist in the top ten for the 3rd Price
2021
Italian Street Photo Festival ISPF
Rome
World Water Day Contest, Italy
2020
Women Street Photographers New York
Women Street Photographers Trieste Photo Days
Siena International Photo Awards SIPA
London Street Photography Festival LSPF
Fuji Film Moment Street Photo Awards, Poland
Women Street Photographers Kuala Lumpur
Italian Street Photo Festival ISPF Rome
2019
Women Street Photographers New York
Miami Street Photography Festival MSPF
Women Street Photographers Brussels
Group Exhibitions
2022
Worlds of Women WOW
Trieste Photo Days in Trieste, Italy
25.10.-6.11.2022
Treviso Photographic Festival
An international photo exhibition in Treviso, Italy
6.9. - 25.9.2022
The Spirits Play Football
Museum der Völker in Schwaz, Austria
28.5. - 30.9.2022
Street sans Frontières
80 international photographers in Paris
27.-29. May 2022
IV Bienal international de Fotografia de Guayaquil
Museuo Luis Noboa Naranjo
Ecquador 2022
ClampArt Gallery, New York
60 photographers selected by Print Swap
2.3.2022
2021
6th Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography
Fotonostrum Gallery Barcelona
9.12. - 8.1.2022
Print Swap exhibition in Brooklyn, NY
The works of 30 international photographers from the Print Swap project in the street of Brooklyn, NY.
29.11. - 6.12.2021
National Museum of Anthropology Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico
An international photo exhibition with works of 60 women street photographers.
4.11.- 4.12.2021
Venice Photo Lab
An international photo exhibition in Venice
8 - 17.10.2021
Treviso Photographic Festival
An international photo exhibition in Treviso
7.9. - 23.9.2021
50 Women Street Photographers
2nd virtual WSP exhibition curated by Gulnara Samoilova and Ximena Echague
29.8.- 31.10.2021
GHANA!
A group exhibition in the casita gallery Berne, Switzerland
20.8. - 26.8.2021
50 Women Street Photographers
A inaugural virtual WSP exhibition curated by Gulnara Samoilova and Ximena Echague
2.5. - 1.7.2021
Double Trouble (part of the Head On Photo Festival 2020 in Sidney)
Brisbane, Australia 9.3. - 28.3.2021
Fujifilm Moment Street Photo Awards Poland
Winners and finalists 2020 in the Cultural Center Gaudemater
Czestochowa, Poland, 1.2. - 26.2.2021
2020
85 Women Street Photographers; Art Space PS109 New York City
10.12.2020 - 2.1.2021
Women Street Photographers at the Indian Photo Festival in Hyderabad, India. An online exhibition 12.11. - 13.12.2020
Double Trouble at the Head On Photo Festival. Printed exhibition, Bondi Beach, Sidney
9.11. - 30.11.2020
Siena International Photo Awards
24.10. - 29.11.2020
56 Women Street Photographers at the Accademia Scaglia during the Trieste Photo Days in Italy.
17.10. - 8.11.2020
46 Women Street Photographers
An online exhibition curated by Gulnara Samoilova and Women Street Photographers shown during the Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival in Malaysia
19.8. - 19.9.2020
Double Trouble (part of the Head On Photo Festival), an online exhibition, Sydney
1.5. - 17.5.2020
2019
Women Street Photographers: Art Space PS109 New York City, 12.12. - 2.1.2020
Miami Street Photography Festival: History Miami Museum, Miami 5.- 8.12.2019
Women Street Photographers, Muntpunt, Brussels, 4.10. - 12.10.2019
With the line bus to the other side. Fantastic coffins from Ghana – Museum für Sepulkralkultur, Kassel
ImageNation Arles, Gallery des Arènes Arles, 15 .- 20.7.19
Street sans Frontières, an international photo exhibition in Paris, May 2019
2018
Shapes of the Ancestors: Bodies, Animals, Art, and Ghanaian Fantasy Coffins – Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Bloomington USA.
Celebration! – Permanent exhibition of the MAS, Museum Aan de Stroom, Antwerpen
Street sans Frontières
An international photo exhibition in Paris, May 2018
Unvergessen machen (make unforgotten)
Museum of the Peoples, Schwaz in Austria – mdv
2017
Until 2021 L’impermanence des choses – Permanent exhibition of the Ethnographic Museum Neuchâtel – MEN
Accra– Portraits of a City – ANO Gallery of Nana Oforiatta Ayim in Accra, Ghana
Until 2018 Jambo Africa – Tropical House, Wolhusen, Switzerland
2016
Until 2018 C’est la vie — Museum of Natural History, Berne
2014
Diesseits – Jenseits – Abseits. Funeral traditions worldwide — Museum of the University, Tübingen MUT
2013
Les Hors-Champs de L‘Affiche — Ethnographic Museum Neuchâtel — MEN exhibition archives
2012 / 2013
Hors-Champs — Ethnographic Museum Neuchâtel — MEN exhibition archives
2011
Griff Rhys Jones’ Ghanaian fantasy coffin — Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich
People and Possession Gallery — National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh
Until 2015: Living and Dying Gallery — British Museum, London
2008
Der letzte Schnaufer — Luftmuseum Amberg, Amberg
2007
Six Feet Under — Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden
Six pieds sous terre — Photoforum Meyrin, Geneva
2006
Six Feet Under — Art Museum, Berne