PAST EXHIBITION ::::
CONFLICT RESOLUTION -
Teddy Cruz and Pedro Reyes

Tree Planting - Palas por Pistolas
Saturday, December 13th, 9am - 12 noon
Bayview Neighborhood, San Francisco

As part of the current exhibition in the Walter and McBean Galleries, Conflict Resolution: Teddy Cruz Pedro Reyes, the Exhibitions and Public Programs department reactivated Pedro Reyes’ project Palas por Pistolas in San Francisco, collaborating with Friends of the Urban Forest and co-sponsored by the Student Affairs office.

Palas Por Pistolas is a project that was initially conceived for the Botanical Garden in Culiacán, a city in western Mexico with the highest rate of handgun deaths in the country. Aided by a campaign organized by the city government, 1,527 weapons were collected and later melted in order that they be re-formed into shovels, shovels that, in turn, would come to be used for the planting of trees in the city and beyond. The shovels have been used to plant trees in Mexico City, Vancouver, and now in San Francisco.


Part of the Acting Out in the City, which utilizes the galleries as a point of departure for large-scale projects of urban intervention that intensify the relationship between artistic productions and public spaces, SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs are supported in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Additional support and assistance for Conflict Resolution: Teddy Cruz and Pedro Reyes have been provided by AIA San Francisco, the Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco, Friends of the Urban Forest (San Francisco), PG&E, the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Protocol, and SMWM.