[strumming music]
[Speaking Spanish]
[Plays "A" note]
[Pedro Reyes] I believe that anything can become material for art.
It's one of the freest environments because you're requested to reinvent the rules.
[Chimes]
— Let's try with revolvers, but it would be better with pistols.
— Si. Si.
This is one of the many workshops that I've been doing where we turn weapons into instruments.
[Speaking Spanish]
[welding]
The notion of sculpture is having the understanding
that you can take that material and give it shape.
Something that was designed to kill, how will it produce sounds for music?
[Chiming]
I often find myself knocking at the doors of different government agencies
trying to persuade them to embrace this initiative as something that could happen on a national scale
because we need to get rid of all the weapons that are entering our territory from the United States.
Doing these workshops is an attempt to transform not only the material metal
but also to try to create a psychological transformation and,
hopefully, a social transformation.
[Percussion music]
[Electric guitar]
[Music continues]
I grew up in Mexico City, and I have always lived here,
and I don't have any plans to move.
I love it.
I studied architecture, although I had always wanted to be an artist.
After architecture school, I wanted to have a kind of a space for doing experiments,
and I opened an artist-run space called Torre de los Vientos.
It was a hollow tower made in 1968,
and I knew this space was abandoned.
I squatted in, and I started to use it as
a studio and then invite other artists to do projects there,
so when I started that, I was 23 years old,
and I didn't have a kind of artistic dedication,
but I learned through curating what was the trade of being an artist.
[Rain falling]
I consider myself a sculptor.
As an artist, I'm very interested with how things are built and how you can walk around them.
I also am very concerned with form and materials.
It's interesting because in architecture,
you learn to solve problems,
so I think that that stick with me, you know,
the issue of having to solve problems
to a degree that often, it's hard for me to think just art for art's sake.
— And then here we could have other sheet metal pieces
so when it moves back and forth, you hear
♪ Ping ping ping ping ♪
Artists change the perception of things.
So something that is considered disgusting,
such as an insect, you could turn that into a source for protein and make food out of insects.
These are the crickets.
so, you see
mm mm, mm
They have their little legs and stuff.
Mm mm. They're very yummy.
Making a hamburger which, instead of meat,
you use crickets could have a tremendous effect in the environment.
Our reliance of meat as a source for protein is driving the planet to extinction.
This was an idea that my son gave to me.
[laughs]
— They're cricket hamburgers.
— Whoa!
— This is an experiment.
— Really?
— Let's see if it's successful.
— They're so big, the issue is to grab them because...
— No, but the size is good, it's actually very good.
[Pedro Reyes] Other people may copy the idea, so you hope that, in a way, you spark a trend.
[violin music]
— Camarada, I have a new idea for a manifesto.
— Good, good, friend. What idea?
— All that is solid melts into air.
Hwahhh...
— I don't know if that could happen.
[Pedro Reyes] When I became a parent, I started to see how my kids were feeding their mind,
so I decided to do this puppet show where I could present the political debate between, you know,
capitalism and socialism,
like Marx on one side or Adam Smith on the other.
[Smith Puppet] And I have no cookie, and, therefore,
you should give me your cookie.
[Pedro Reyes] OK. Well, you're gonna fight over who eats the cookie
but using these kind of, uh, ideological ideas.
[Marx Puppet] Well, according to you, the capitalist,
you should have bought a cookie
so you would have ownership of the cookie,
and then you would have the right to eat all of the cookie.
[Smith Puppet] OK. Just give me the cookie.
[Marx Puppet] You can't have my cookie.
[Smith Puppet] Give me the cookie.
[laughs]
[Pedro Reyes] Mythology, mathematics, neurology, pacifism, poetry, psychology.
That's social sciences, feminism, social justice, Latin America.
I mean, like, I think that my library is like my brain.
In any moment, one section of the library becomes the raw material for a new series.
For me, every year, I need to move to a different planet...
One big, new field of research that I start.
It becomes an entire system of reading materials and sculptures that will be made and a show.
[strumming music]
— All right.
[Pedro Reyes]The People's United Nations, or pUN, is an idea that I had since I was a kid.
— I did it.
[Pedro Reyes] There's a comic strip made in the Sixties called "Mafalda."
She's saying, "Yes. When I grow up, I'm gonna be an interpreter at the UN
so when one delegate tells another,
"Your country stinks," uh, I'm gonna translate, ''Oh, your country's charming,'
and then, you know, 'I'm gonna avoid global war,'
and then she looks at the planet and says, like,
"Well, you have to promise you will last until I grow up."
[laughs]
— On the count of 3. 1, 2, 3.
[Pedro Reyes] Role-play is something that is very much present in pUN.
[indistinct conversation]
The fact of being in character and the character being that you're the delegate of your country
makes this game very serious,
and I love serious games. I mean, I love serious fun.
— So I'm from Mexico City. I've been living in California for 4 years.
— Yeah.
— I love my city. I love my country...
— Yeah.
— but it isn't like, people are scared.
— "If you were the president or head of state of China,
what change would you implement?"
— In the past two years,
two members of my family have been killed.
— Remove the nationalistic component of a school curriculum.
— We need to rise as citizens.
We need to not just complain.
— Super fun talking to you.
— So fun talking to you, too. [laughs]
[Pedro Reyes] That is why art is useful,
because you can have this rehearsal space
where you can play.
[laughter and conversation]
[Pedro Reyes] This workshop is called "pUN Times."
Each of you say to the group something about your country,
but it's, like, actually something
that you don't like about your country,
so we're gonna turn that negative thing
into a positive headline of extremely optimist scenarios.
[People murmur]
— Hi. I'm the delegate from Venezuela,
and when I shared my concerns about violence and crime
in my country, the delegates of Germany, Australia, Yemen,
and Paraguay, um, helped me think of a solution,
so soon, the headline in the papers in Venezuela will be,
"Mandatory Use of U-Turn Bullets in All Guns in the Country."
[Laughter and applause]
[Pedro Reyes] I love my life.
[laughs]
It's super fun.
You're like a kid, and everybody gets to do what you wish.
I mean, in terms of "Oh, I have this one idea. Let's make it." "Yes," and it happens.
It's amazing.
[Cheering]
[soft electronic music]