Pedro Reyes is an artist who uses sculpture, architecture, video and performance to address social and political issues. “Atomic Amnesia,” commissioned to raise awareness of the risk of nuclear conflict, was presented in New York City’s Times Square. The ongoing “Palas por Pistolas” project collected guns in Mexico to produce the same number of shovels to plant 1,527 trees. This led to “Disarm,” which transformed 6,700 destroyed guns into musical instruments. Reyes’ works are included in many permanent collections, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Coléccion Jumex in Mexico City and Vancouver Art Gallery. He has been a visiting lecturer at MIT’s Art, Culture and Technology program, received the 2015 U.S. State Department Medal for the Arts and was named a Ford Foundation Art of Change fellow.