Kester (artist)

Throne of Weapons

On display in the museum
Material	recycled weapons
Size	Height: 101 cm Width: 61 cm
Created	c.2002
Place	Maputo
Present location	Room 25 in the British Museum
Registration	2002.Af1.1

The Throne of Weapons is a 2002 sculpture created by Cristóvão Canhavato out of disused weapons. It is owned by the British Museum and has been called the Museum's most "eloquent object" and has been shown in a wide variety of ways.

The sculpture was created by Cristóvão Estavão Canhavato, who was born in 1966 in Zavala in southern Mozambique. Canhavato works under the name Kester as part of a co-operative called Associação Núcleo de Arte. Kester's artistic education took place at the artist's collective—although he already had a knowledge of engineering construction. The artists collective was supported by Christian Aid and another Christian group led by Bishop Dinis Sengulane as part of an organisation called "Transformacao de Armas em Enxadas" or "Transforming Arms into Tools".

The throne has been signed by the artist, but as the curators have noted, the throne has also been "signed" by termites who have traditionally damaged African wooden sculptures. Kester, the artist, points out the smiling faces that he has included in his work even though his relatives were injured by weapons like these. At the top of the right hand is a human face, but the face was only "found" by the artist. The holes and marks are the remains of where a strap had been attached when it was carried by its owner. The symbol Kester created was the gothic shape at the back which is intended to symbolise a church.

The "Transforming Arms into Tools" organisation supplied the decommissioned weapons to Kester and his group for this and many other related pieces of sculpture. The guns, mostly AK-47 assault rifles, were manufactured in Portugal, Eastern Europe and North Korea. The H&K G3 rifles used to form the backrest were designed in Germany and manufactured in Portugal. They were widely used throughout West Africa. The Russian contribution of the iconic AK-47 rifle is important to the design—an AK-47, a hoe, and a book still feature on Mozambique's flag.

On the front of the chair is a North Korean manufactured AKM rifle and a single PPSh-43 submachine gun, and the weapons that make up the seat were made in Poland and Czechoslovakia.