Emdash is thrilled to have supported the latest iteration of Mexican artist Pedro Reyes’ important performance piece ‘Disarm’. Turning illegal firearms confiscated by the Mexican government into intricate musical instruments, Reyes has created artworks that make agents of death produce songs of life.

Against a backdrop of Mexico’s highest ever recorded homicide rate in 2017, the alarming rise of gun crime in the US and in the UK, Reyes’s work moves to act now to change gun culture, while also pushing boundaries in art and appropriation.  “It’s important to consider that many lives were taken with these weapons;” says Reyes, “as if a sort of exorcism was taking place, the music expelled the demons they held, as well as being a requiem for the lives lost.”

For this performance, renowned producer, composer and musician John Coxon worked with musicians Oli Burslem, Ashley Wales, Steve Noble and Rupert Clervaux to create an enthralling 22 minute long musical experience.