In 2008 Mexican artist Pedro Reyes started a public art project in the city of Culiacýn, which has the highest rate of gun deaths in the country, due to the drug related crimes.

The project, which is called Palas por Pistolas turns weapons into farming tools and raises awareness among people. For Reyes the result is in "showing how an agent of death can become an agent of life".

Read more about Palas por Pistolas.

Reyes invited people to donate the weapons by various means like radio, television ads and giving out coupons for other needed goods. He managed to collect 1527 guns, had them melted down and transformed into 1527 shovel heads.

The shovels have been donated to schools, art institutes and communities around the world to plant 1527 trees.

Trees have been planted at Vancouver Art Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, Paris' Maison Rouge, the Lyon Biennial, in Marfa, Texas and in Denver in Colorado.