Every year, Mexican authorities seize thousands of weapons from the country's drug war, which has claimed more than 55,000 lives over the past five years - but Mexican artist Pedro Reyes has given them new life as musical instruments.
Normally the weapons would have been buried or destroyed; but instead, the Mexican Secretary of Defense offered the decommissioned weapons from the notoriously violent border town of Ciudad, Juarez to Reyes to transform into art, as he had in 2008 when he melted down over 1,500 guns into tree planting shovels and used them to plant more than 1,500 trees.
He immediately accepted, and soon, gun barrels became marimbas, ammunition magazines became guitar bodies, and revolvers became violins.
From the 6,700 destroyed weapons he received, Reyes created two groups of instruments: the first, a series titled Imagine, is an orchestra of fifty instruments including flutes, stringed instruments, percussion and more. The second, Disarm, is an installation of mechanical musical instruments which can either be automated or played live using a laptop computer or midi keyboard.
This weekend, the instruments went on show for the first time at the Lisson Gallery in London, where professional musicians, including including Spiritualized's John Coxon, performed using transformed weapons. They also produced a limited edition vinyl LP featuring Coxon performing alongside six well-known improvisors.
To see the instruments, and read Reyes' statement about the works, click "Open Gallery" above; then watch them in action in the video below.
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