Art from War: The Throne of Weapons

I caught this in the London Evening Standard the other night and thought that it would be worth sharing with you. Having seen it in the British Museum on a few occasions, it never ceases to touch me.

link: http://www.standard.co.uk/arts/visual-arts/london--a-world-city-in-20-objects-no-10-throne-of-weapons-8367642.html

London - A world city in 20 objects: No. 10 Throne of Weapons

Our weekly series examines an artefact from the British Museum with origins in one of the capital’s many diverse cultures

From 1977 until 1992, Mozambique, in south-east Africa, fought a  civil war which was fuelled by the Cold War. During this period millions of guns were poured into the country via the international arms trade.

Many weapons remained buried or hidden after the war, representing a threat to peace and stability. In 1995, Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane of the Christian Council of Mozambique set up the Transforming Arms into Tools project, which offered farming equipment and other materials in exchange for guns.

Mozambican artists turned these weapons into sculptures that reflect the collective creativity of the people of Mozambique and their refusal to submit to a culture of violence.

The civil war claimed almost a million lives and left five million people displaced. The Throne of Weapons represents both the tragedy of that war and the human triumph of those who achieved a lasting peace. Its anthropomorphic qualities — it has arms, legs, a back and most importantly a face (actually two faces) — link it to the arts of Africa, in which non-figurative objects such as chairs, stools, weapons, pots etc are seen and described as human beings.

Although made of guns, the Throne of Weapons harks back to older wooden African stools and thrones used by leaders that showed their prestige but also their willingness and ability to talk to their fellow men and to the ancestors. The Throne is also a contemporary work of art with a global significance, linking the arts of Africa with the Western arts scene, and Mozambique with the global arms trade. None of the guns used were made in Mozambique, or even in Africa, thus it becomes a sculpture in which we are all, one way or another, complicit.

The Throne is a war memorial but it celebrates another kind of courage and another kind of victory. Museums are more and more concerned with portraying intangible as well as tangible heritage as a way of building an emotional bridge with a past inhabited by people rather than by the objects they created, especially when charged with describing traumatic histories of warfare, slavery and the abuse of human rights. The Throne of Weapons allows us to cross that bridge.

Christopher Spring, British Museum Curator, African Collections

On display in the Sainsbury African galleries, room 25, British Museum, WC1 (020 7323 8299, britishmuseum.org). Open Sat-Thurs, 10am-5.30pm; Fri 10am-8.30pm, admission free.