Additional Events: Soft Power & Cultural Diplomacy

Dear friends,

We are excited to announce two additional events as part of the Soft Power & Cultural Diplomacy Study Group this April!

THIS FRIDAY, we have the honor of having artist Pedro Reyes join us in a conversation about ways to inspire change through art and culture.

Pedro Reyes is a Mexican artist who has won international attention for large-scale projects that address current social and political issues. Through a varied practice utilising sculpture, performance, video, and activism, Reyes explores the power of individual and collective organisation to incite change through communication, creativity, happiness, and humour. A socio-political critique of contemporary gun culture is addressed in Reyes’s Palas por Pistolas (2008), in which the artist worked with local authorities in Culiacán, Mexico, to melt down guns into shovels, intended to plant trees in cities elsewhere in the world. Similarly, in Disarm (2013) the Mexican government donated over 6,700 confiscated firearms for Reyes to transform into mechanical musical instruments, which are automated to play a delightful, if surreal loop, retaining the raw emotion of their origination.

In Pedro Reyes’ Palas por Pistolas, 1,527 shovels were made from the melted metal of 1,527 guns collected from residents of Culiacán, and used to plant 1,527 trees in the community (Courtesy Pedro Reyes and LABOR). Art 21 Magazine

Often using trash from the beach, De Bris curates decorative and wearable art, dubbed as ‘trashion’, or other works such as ‘Black Widow’ (pictured above) which honors animals lost in bushfires.

On Friday, April 22nd, we will have the privilege to speak with artist Marina DeBris on way her works bring creative attention to the urgency of climate change. Marina DeBris is an artist based in Sydney, Australia, whose environmental art activism focuses on reusing trash to raise awareness of ocean and beach pollution.

We hope you will join us!

Warmly,

The Canales Project

Carla Dirlikov