In a quiet corner of a courtyard, two delegates from Venezuela and Cuba participate in an intimate discussion about foreign affairs. In another corner, small groups of representatives from countries around the world discuss whether marijuana should be legalized and, if so, how it should be regulated. Soon the sound of people speaking a multitude of languages fills the air.
An art museum might be an unlikely space for these scenes, but on May 2–3 the Hammer Museum at UCLA will host a large gathering of volunteers representing countries from around the world for a two-day assembly of global problem solving.
The intent of Mexican artist Pedro Reyes’ People’s United Nations (pUN), now on view at the Hammer Museum, is to create a space in which participants can engage with challenging subjects with humor and light-heartedness, ultimately seeking to find serious, if idealistic, solutions.
The pUN General Assembly will be an experimental conference during which pre-determined delegates representing the 195 member and observer states of the United Nations come together and address a set of global proposals using conflict resolution techniques borrowed from art, theater, psychology and play.
Originally staged at the Queens Museum of Art in 2013, whose building is the original site of the United Nations, the artist felt that Los Angeles was the only other city where a group this diverse would be able to gather in one room for a global dialogue.
“You’re in a condition where you can reinvent yourself and reinvent the world,” said Reyes, who infuses theater, psychology and activism into his artistic practice. Although scenarios are presented in hypothetical language, they address current global issues such as climate change, gender inequality, labor issues and food shortages.
The pUN delegates will be a diverse group from a variety of disciplines and professions who have direct ties to the countries they are representing. The Hammer has worked with the Burkle Center for International Relations, the UCLA Asia Institute, the Fowler Museum and the Dashew Center for International Students and Schoalrs, the UCLA African Studies Center and the UCLA Center for World Health, among others, to organize the delegates. The group includes several members of the UCLA community. Among the Bruin delegates are Kevin Njabo, the associate director and Africa director for the Center for Tropical Research at UCLA, who will represent Cameroon, and Melissa Tandiwe Myambo, Mellon postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor in the International Institute, who will represent Zimbabwe.
Ultimately, Reyes’s project is both a playful reinterpretation of global diplomacy and a political space in which people collaboratively examine structures of power and work toward radical change.
The Hammer currently has 134 volunteer delegates representing 120 countries and is still seeking delegates. Although delegates should be connected by birth or family ties to the country they represent, they are not required to prepare anything or be an expert on the affairs of their country. Sign up to participate and represent your country.
Delegates join us as unpaid volunteers, however the artist is creating a limited edition signed print for all participants and the Museum will provide lunches and refreshments.
Hammer visitors are invited to observe the delegates over the course of the two day event and to participate in hourly guided tours of the assembly and exhibition.
For more information and to sign up, you can also email Carolina Guillermet, curatorial project consultant at the Hammer whom has been serving as pUN delegate coordinator.