Sculptor Pedro Reyes has done an unusual thing with guns discarded from Mexico’s ongoing violence: He’s turned them into musical instruments.
He’s cut gun barrels to different lengths to sound like marimbas, fashioned weapon stocks into bass guitars, made a piano out of rifles, a xylophone from gun parts and transformed pistol parts into cymbals.
If you don’t believe decommissioned gun parts could make sweet music, watch the eight-minute video above.
Reyes chose his instruments from some 6,700 guns turned in or seized by the army and police in Ciudad Juarez, the border city across from El Paso, Texas, that for a period was the most violent city in the world.
“This project has a pacifist intent, to create a global consciousness about arms trafficking,” Reyes said earlier this year.
The mechanized “gun orchestra” is controlled by computers and can be pre-programmed to play music. Click here to see photos of the various instruments.