Pedro Reyes' new project, "Imagine," fuses the art of upcycling with the issue of weapons awareness. The Mexico City-based artist has taken 6,700 guns seized by the Mexican government and transformed them into working musical instruments. The project has taken objects of destruction and turned them into works of art, bringing awareness to gun violence in Mexico.
Reyes collaborated with six musicians to create the unusual instruments. The guns, which range from rifles to pistols, were slated for burial, a common practice in mass weapon disposals in Mexico. Reyes intercepted the weaponry and began the transformation by melting and cutting down each piece. The pieces were then given strings, mouth pieces, or welded together to make a variety of string, wind, and percussion instruments. Remarkably, the gun guitars, rifle barrel flutes and helmet banjos work together to produce beautiful music, despite their destructive past.
Reyes also calls attention to the fact that the components of his musical instruments have likely taken lives in the past. Almost 80,000 deaths have been caused by guns in Mexico in just six years, some of which could have been at the hands of the weapons upcycled into this project. Many of the guns were initially illegally acquired without license or permit, bringing full circle to the gun trade problem in the region.
The gun instruments act as a requiem for the lives they’ve taken, symbolically expelling the spirits of the lives that were lost with each musical note. Reyes is no stranger to working with guns, having previously melted down 1,527 weapons into shovels that were used to plant trees in 2008.
Via This is Colossal