In this preview from the "Mexico City" episode of Season 8 of "Art in the Twenty-First Century," artist Pedro Reyes organizes a workshop where participants create musical instruments from firearms. "Doing these workshops is an attempt to transform not only the material metal, but also to try to create a psychological transformation," says the artist. "And, hopefully, a social transformation."

Pedro Reyes designs ongoing projects that propose playful solutions to social problems. From turning guns into musical instruments, to hosting a People’s United Nations to address pressing concerns, to offering ecologically-friendly grasshopper burgers from a food cart, Reyes transforms existing problems into ideas for a better world. In the artist’s hands, complex subjects like political and economic philosophies are reframed in ways that are easy to understand, such as a puppet play featuring Karl Marx and Adam Smith fighting over how to share cookies. When encountering a project by the artist, viewers are often enlisted as participants, whether through one-on-one conversations, therapeutic acts, or as creators of objects in collaborative workshops.

Learn more about the artist at:
http://www.art21.org/artists/pedro-reyes

Watch the FULL EPISODE online (http://www.art21.org/videos/episode-mexico-city) or from PBS streaming apps (http://www.pbs.org/anywhere).

Season 8 of "Art in the Twenty-First Century" premiered Friday, September 16, 2016 at 9:00 p.m. on PBS. "Mexico City" aired Friday, September 16 at 10:00 p.m.

Learn more about Season 8 at:
http://www.art21.org/season8