The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life was commissioned for the African Galleries at the British Museum. It grew out of a close collaboration between Christian Aid, the British Museum, the Christian Council of Mozambique and four artists working in the TAE (Transforming Arms into Tools) project: Christavao Canhavato (Kester), Hilario Nhatugueja, Fiel dos Santos and Adelino Serafim Mathe.

Almost immediately after the armed struggle for independence from colonial rule ended in 1975, Mozambique was plunged into an externally fuelled ‘civil war’. Here the country was used as a pawn in a global power struggle between world ideologies – the ‘Cold War’ between the Soviet Union and the West.
Millions of guns were poured into the country during the war, most remaining hidden or buried in the bush. Although the war ended in 1992, these weapons represented a continuing potential for conflict. In an attempt to eliminate this threat, Bishop Sengulane set up the Swords into Ploughshares project in 1995, inspired by a passage from the Bible: ‘They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks’ (Isaiah 2:4); the project later became known as Transforming Arms into Tools.

Mozambicans were encouraged to hand over weapons in exchange for ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines. The weapons were then cut up and turned into imaginative sculptures by a group of artists working in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.

The Tree of Life is a war memorial in one sense, though it does not commemorate soldiers and politicians. Instead it celebrates the courage of the people of Mozambique, many of them unarmed women and children. These people stood up to and ultimately triumphed over the culture of violence which had been inflicted upon their country.