War art exhibited at the ICTR
By Hirondelle News Agency
AK47s, landmines, RPGs and pistols are some of the weapons that would in normal
circumstances be a hundred leagues away from the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR).
But that was not the case this week. Perched proudly on a pedestal in the lobby
of the Tribunal is a combination of the above weapons. No, they are not arsenals
confiscated from visitors to the Tribunal, but rather a unique art exhibition at
the ICTR, showing remnants of the civil war in Mozambique.
The guns and bombs are not in working condition, but scraps from an ingenious
disarmament project started in the country by the Mozambican Christian Council
which encouraged the population to hand in weapons in exchange for farm
implements.
That is when the idea of "Arms into Art" cropped up. The death machines were
turned into life-dancers, musicians, birds and even a dinosaur.
Gun barrels are welded into the legs of a saxophone player, his arched back is
formed from the famous curved bullet magazines of an AK47 rifle. The figure's
head is made from a hand gun and part of the musical instrument in its hands is
from an RPG launcher.
The collection is the brainchild of Mozambican artists going under the name
Nacleo de Arte, some of whom carried the same weapons during the sixteen-year
civil war.
The exhibition has travelled around the world sending a message of peace and
reconciliation and is for the first time in Tanzania.
They were brought to the Arusha based Tribunal by the French cultural
organisation, the Alliance Francaise.
"The broken arms turned into art are symbols of bringing peace to Africa", said
Marc Basseporte, director of the Alliance Francaise centre in Arusha.
"The war tools provided inspiration for the creation of sometimes fragile and
elegant, sometimes robust sculptures", he added.
The exhibition is scheduled to last the whole week.
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