British Museum to Unveil 'Tree of Life'

A half-ton sculpture made out of chopped up guns and other decommissioned weapons will be unveiled at the British Museum on Wednesday, Feb. 2.

By Kenneth Chan, Monday, January 31, 2005

A half-ton sculpture made out of chopped up guns and other decommissioned weapons will be unveiled at the British Museum on Wednesday, Feb. 2.

The ‘Tree of Life,’ which Mozambican artists spent three months creating, was commissioned by The British Museum and overseas development charity Christian Aid to coincide with the start of the Africa 2005 season of cultural events in London.

The sculpture, which stands three-meters in height, is made entirely out of weapons such as AK-47s, pistols and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The weapons are collected by an innovative project, Transforming Arms into Tools, which exchanges guns for equipment such as sewing machines, bicycles, and building materials. One village received a tractor for collecting 500 weapons. In the last nine years, the project—which employs some former child soldiers—has collected and dismantled more than 600,000 weapons.

According to U.K.-based Christian Aid, the artists who constructed the ‘Tree of Life’ see it as a way of using their art to promote peace.

“I tell people that sleeping with a gun in your bedroom is like sleeping with a snake—one day it will turn round and bite you,” said Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane, the founder Transforming Arms into Tools, which is supported by Christian Aid.

However, there are still millions of arms hidden throughout Mozambique—a legacy of the 16-year-long civil war that ended in 1992.