Mexican artist Pedro Reyes treats sculpture as a way of organising relationships, not only shaping an object. In his conversation with the South China Morning Post, projects involving weapons, plants, therapy and collective participation appear as parts of one question: how can art rehearse a different social arrangement?
Disarm turned confiscated firearms into musical instruments. The transformation is visually direct, but it does not pretend that converting metal removes violence. Musicians, institutions and audiences activate the work, while the origin of the material remains present. The project’s force lies in holding destruction and collective sound together.
Sanatorium, a temporary clinic offering invented forms of therapy, moved the artwork into encounters between strangers. It borrowed the language of care without claiming medical treatment. That boundary is crucial: participatory art may open reflection, but it must not replace qualified mental-health support or exploit vulnerability as spectacle.
Reyes’s practice draws on the idea of social sculpture associated with Joseph Beuys, while bringing it into contemporary urban and political problems. Participation alone is not automatically democratic. The artist still defines rules, selects a site and controls documentation; a responsible project makes those power relations visible and allows refusal.
The interview is useful because it presents optimism as a method rather than a cheerful style. Reyes does not argue that an artwork fixes gun violence or institutional failure. He builds situations in which people can test another use for material, skill and attention. Sculpture in this sense is a prototype for behaviour—valuable when its limits remain as clear as its ambition.
