Week 44: 'Although it's entirely made of chopped-up guns...'

Wonder spawned in: 2001
Wondered into being by: Cristóvão Canhavato in Mozambique
Wonderspan: 14 min
To experience this wonder at its best: Make sure you can hear the sound.

This week's Monday wonder is brought to us in an episode from Neil Macgregor's radio documentary series, A History of the World in 100 Objects.  It's the story of how people in Mozambique have been turning weapons into art as a symbolic challenge to war all over the world.  The programme's artefect is The Throne of Weapons - a 'throne' made of dismantled guns.  Personally, I don't particularly like the object as art.  The wonder in it, for me, is how well it represents the struggle of people, who have no extraordinary power other than their own humanity, to overcome the conditions of violence and domination which beset societies all over the world.  I wonder how many of the guns in the throne of weapons were made by British arms manufacturers like BAE Systems, which prides itself on selling the means to wage war to countries all over the world. (See the Campaign Against Arms Trade site for more and to join the campaign to stop UK arms exports).

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ahow/all#playepisode5

Extra...

Another episode from A History of the World discusses the extraordinary consequences and historical significance of a single technological innovation: the solar panel.  I'm sceptical of the programme's unalloyed optimism based on the potential of technology alone, rather than changes in hearts and minds, to take us through the global emergency that is climate change.  All the same, the wonder for me is in pondering the changes we are going through as a species as a result of this technology.  The programme shows with Neil Macgregor's characteristic eloquence why the invention of the solar panel alone can invite us to wonder about our relationship to the sun as a source of life and, just as we think we know where our human story is going, change everything all over again, just as did the first ever chopping tool, or the plough, or indeed the gun.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ahow/all#playepisode3 

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