Big Ideas in Arts & Culture Lecture Series
Pedro Reyes
On Thursday, September 22, Mexico City-based artist Pedro Reyes will talk about his artistic practice as part of the Big Ideas in Art and Culture Lecture Series. His work is also part of 1mile2, an eight-month artistic program mapping Guelph’s cultural ecology.
Reyes’ lifelong association with Mexico City has shaped his practice and his social conscience. Trained as an architect, Reyes employs architectural and design strategies to challenge the forces that influence urban and social geography, addressing the interplay of physical and social space. His 2008 project, Palas Por Pistolas, was initiated by the botanical garden of Culiacán, a city in western Mexico with a high rate of death from the use of firearms. Proposing to work beyond the borders of the garden, Reyes organized a campaign for the voluntary donation of weapons in exchange for food stamps, domestic appliances and electronics. As a result 1,527 weapons were recovered and became the raw material to create 1,527 spades. The guns were crushed with a steamroller, smelted and refashioned to create the horticultural tools. Fifteen hundred of the spades were distributed to the Culiacán community and were used to plant 1,500 trees. Palas Por Pistolas demonstrated how agents of death could be transformed into agents of life.
Pedro Reyes has exhibited in institutions throughout the world, including the Carpenter Centre for Visual Arts at Harvard University; The MCA, Chicago; the San Francisco Art Institute; the Serpentine Gallery, London; CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; the Jumex Collection, Mexico City; P.S.1, New York; the Venice Biennial. 2011 will see two solo exhibitions, one at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, as well as the MAC/VAL Foundation in Paris.
The Big Ideas in Art and Culture Lecture Series is a joint production of the Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area and Musagetes. Admission is free.
A free bus to the lecture from Kitchener leaves Duke Street entrance of Kitchener City Hall at 7 pm. Seats are limited. Register for the bus at http://bigideasbusticket.eventbrite.com or by calling 519.744.5123.
For more information, email 1mile2@musagetes.ca, call 519.836.7300 or visit 1mile2.com.
About Big Ideas in Art and Culture
The Big ideas in Art and Culture Lecture Series is a joint production of CAFKA and Musagetes. CAFKA is about making art happen in the public spaces of this community, introducing contemporary art to new audiences and engaging the public in new ways of seeing their city. The Musagetes Foundation has been active around the world gathering artists and public intellectuals to consider variations on the theme of social transformations through creative and artistic interventions. These open forums, or cafés, explore and apply new ideas in creative practices, social change and community development. Musagetes Cafés have taken place in London, England, 2007, Barcelona, Spain, 2008, Rijeka, Croatia, 2010, Sudbury, Ontario, 2011 and in Lecce, Italy, 2012. CAFKA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the City of Kitchener, The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation – Musagetes Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council in helping to make this lecture series possible.
