The Throne of Africa

Today again, and just as it happened with our previous posts on the Tree of Life, the Transforming Arms into Art Project or the Freedom sculpture, we bring you another art piece produced within the scope of a humanitarian project devised with a deep concern for social awareness and social justice. Its ultimate objective is that of encouraging a culture of peace in a country emerging from a sixteen-year long civil war. We are referring to the unique project “Transforming Arms into Art” developed in Mozambique. We, therefore, expect to touch your hearts and alert you to the global need for solidarity and against the destructiveness fuelled by illicit arms trade throughout the world.

Shooting Poverty into Art

Although not so much falling within the aesthetic pattern of the artworks we have been dealing with in this blog, we bring to you today something that, however, totally meets its objective of also introducing art pieces which have been produced within the scope of humanitarian projects with a social purpose. In fact, and just as we hope to have achieved with our post on the Tree of Life and the project behind it, we expect to touch your hearts and to emotionally engage you.

Tree of Life

The Tree of Life, a sculpture.  Different sized gun barrels, butts and magazines, triggers, trigger guards and even complete pistols are transformed into the bark of a tree. Sliced, opened out and flattened metal sections from gun barrels and magazines become leaves, making up the thick foliage of this tree. This is how dismantled, chopped off weapons are made unusable for its original functions and exhibited as artworks in museums.  The Tree of Life, commissioned by the British Museum and created in 2004 in Mozambique to commemorate peace, is the first object we bring to you, inviting you to share it with us, to observe and to appreciate it, and – why not? – share it with others.