From Guns to Guitars

He is a classically trained musician and composer who studied at Colombia's best conservatory. But instead of concert hall performances Cesar Lopez plays on the streets of Bogota. There’s something that speaks even louder: his musical instrument looks much like a Winchester Rifle. That’s because it used to be one. But now, six metal guitar strings are threaded over the weapon's barrel, ending at a guitar neck flaring past the muzzle. It's part of project in which Lopez transforms weapons of war into instruments of peaceful sound, using them in a kind of political performance art. "What we want to create is an invitation to an attitude of change," he says. "The main idea is that weapons can be changed from an object of destructiveness to an object of constructiveness."

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