Horse drawn carriages, bicycles and flowers made of bullet casings, twisted machine gun barrels and action triggers are displayed in an artist’s workshop in Baghdad

They wrought death and destruction in one of the world’s most heavily armed nations, but as the specter of war recedes in Iraq, four students are turning scrap from old guns and munitions into symbols of hope.

The show is the work of graduate students at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts.

“It’s a message to the world that these pieces of equipment that bring death can be turned into things of beauty,” said artist Ahmed Imad Aldeen, 27, at his small workshop in the fortified government and diplomatic compound.

“It’s also an appeal to Iraq and the rest of the world that enough is enough. Enough of the killing,” added fellow artist Ali Hamid Mohammed.

The group of four students joined forces last year to create the pieces which are being displayed in a small room next to a green zone live shooting range.

The idea of turning munitions into art was first proposed by Zahim Jihad Mutar, head of a non-government Iraqi armament disposal group.

Mutar, 57, a veteran of the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, runs the Iraq Mine Clearance Organization (IMCO), a US State Department and United Nations funded group that destroys more than 600 weapons a day.

Sick of the destruction that guns and bombs had inflicted on his country, he began IMCO in late 2003. Then he hit on the idea of turning weapons into art as a way of coming to terms with the past.

The former Iraqi army soldier approached the students last year and agreed to provide them with a place to work as well as supplies of scrap metal from destroyed AK-47s, mortar tubes and grenade launchers.

“These weapons for killing people - I wanted to change them into symbols of love, freedom and life,” said the former mine specialist.

Mutar’s firm operates throughout Iraq, destroying weapons confiscated from militants by the US military, deactivating mines and helping train the Iraqi army in mine disposal techniques.

IMCO estimates more than 25 million mines are buried in Iraqi soil and three million tons’ of unexploded ordnance blight nearly 10,000 communities.

Later this month, Mutar and the artists hope to inaugurate a new gallery in a more prominent location in the capital. Proceeds from sales will go to orphaned children and victims of mine accidents.

Source: AFP