The Perlman Teaching Museum’s most recent exhibition, “Ahimsa,” opened Sept. 24.
“Ahimsa,” titled after the Sanskrit word meaning “nonviolence,” is a solo show by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes. Reyes has also been selected by the Carleton Art and Art History Department for the Ward Lucas Lectureship Series of the Arts as their 2026 Lucas Guest Lecturer.
“He’s a fantastic artist, activist, and a wonderful speaker,” said Sara Cluggish, the Mary Hulings Rice Director and Curator of the Perlman Teaching Museum. “In choosing someone, we think about a speaker and an artist who would appeal to young people, and I think he’s definitely making work around some of the most pressing issues of our times.”
The Perlman Teaching Museum collaborated with the Office of the Arts (the director of which oversees the Ward Lucas Lectureship Series) and the Art and Art History Department. Encompassing sculpture, print and video. The show concentrates on nuclear disarmament and gun violence amidst the broader theme of nonviolence, ideas that led to his selection for the show and lectureship.
“I would say that a lot of his works have a participatory aspect to them,” Cluggish said, “In the art world, we’d call that ‘social practice art.’ He’s creating situations that encourage community exchange amongst people.”
One such work is a 2020 poster titled “Protest and Survive (Urgent Series).” This work’s title re-words the slogan “Protect and Survive,” which comes from the British government’s information campaign in the late 1970s that advised the general public on ways to protect themselves from a nuclear attack. This visual collection of artistic resistance will be further highlighted in the final formal event of this series, “Pins for Change: Make Your Own Buttons Workshop,” which will occur on Thursday, Oct. 23. The piece is featured in the larger Baucher Gallery alongside other works related to Reyes’s activist efforts for nuclear disarmament and includes both 2D and 3D works.
This work is related to Reyes’s work with the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) that resulted in the collaborative piece “Artists Against the Bomb,” which features anti-nuclear prints made by artists across the world.
“My initial reaction, I have to admit, when he said that he wanted to do a show around disarmament, a large part of which would be focused around nuclear warfare — I was like, ‘wow, that’s my parent’s generation of activism.’ I wasn’t sure if anti-nuclear conversations were something that resonated with young people,” said Cluggish. “But students [during a class visit] said that they thought about nuclear activism as tied to climate change, which I found really interesting.”
This connection was highlighted by a tree planting ceremony that occurred on Wednesday, Sept. 24, prior to the exhibit’s opening where attendees planted a tree near the Weitz Center for Creativity with shovels from Reyes’s “Palas por Pistolas” (Shovels for Guns) (2006). To create these shovels, Reyes melted 1,527 guns that were handed over by civilians in Culiacán, Mexico. Some of the shovels are currently on display in the Perlman’s Kaemmer Family Gallery.
The exhibition opening was preceded by a series of events sponsored by the Ward Lucas Lectureship Series of the Arts. Part of this Lucas Lecture series included a workshop that Reyes led on Tuesday, Sept. 23, titled “Amendment to the Amendment,” in which community members were asked to re-imagine and revise the Second Amendment.
“As a society, we give ourselves laws, but some of these laws were created a very long time ago,” Pedro Reyes said in his opening statement. “And when you try to do some progress with gun control, there’s always the Second Amendment as an obstacle to any kind of more sensible gun control…the aim is for you to talk and decide how this piece of legislation should change. This amendment was created over one hundred years ago, and back then, it would take you two minutes to change a musket.”
The event also featured a musical performance by Jeremy Tatar and Mark Kreitzer, who played the flute and guitar, respectively. Forged from 6700 melted-down firearms that were confiscated by the Mexican government and donated to Reyes, these playable instruments came from his “Disarm “series (2012) and are also displayed in the Kaemmer Family Gallery.
The fund that enables this programming is the Ward Lucas Lectureship Series, which began in 1964 and is run through the Office of the Arts. Every year, one of Carleton’s art departments (Dance in 2025, Studio Art 2026, Theatre 2027 and so on) creates a list of desired artists from their field. Once an individual is confirmed to be available and interested, activities and lectures are designed throughout the following year. While only Lucas Guests who are visual artists have exhibited at the Perlman Teaching Museum, other artists have performed elsewhere on campus, including jazz pianist Vijay Iyer in Kracum Hall and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who showed several films of his in the Weitz Cinema.
“Pedro was at the top of the list of hoped-for artists when we sat down with the Studio Art faculty to begin planning for this year’s Lucas,” said Steve Richardson, the Director of the Arts at Carleton, “His blend of superb artistry across many genres, his activist approach, and his willingness to engage with students seemed like a perfect fit for Carleton.”
This exhibition is open now until Wednesday, Nov. 19.
