Courtesy of Christian Chevez/ AP
Designers say they hope the work will inspire people to create bridges between cultures.
A set of Day-Glo pink seesaws that allowed people to connect across the U.S.-Mexico border won the prestigious 2020 Design of the Year award. The designers indicated they hoped the work would inspire people to create bridges not barriers between cultures.
The setting for the seesaw crossed between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico. The photo shoot only lasted for 40 minutes. It depicted a feeling of, “symbolic importance”.
The creators of the seesaws are, Ronald Rael, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate professor of design at San José State University. They initially came up with the idea 10 years ago after the Secure Fence Act 2006, which started the large-scale building on the border.
They hope that the design will help people reassess the validity of borders and promote discussion rather than division. San Fratello said, “I think it’s become increasingly clear that we don’t need to build walls we need to build bridges.”
“Walls don’t stop people from entering our Capitol,” Rael added. “Walls don’t stop viruses from moving. We must connect with one another and be together without hurting each other.”
Videos of people engaging and playing across the border during the art installation went viral in July 2019, as Rael explained the project provided, “a literal fulcrum” between the countries.
Who’s border wall legacy is it?
For Donald Trump, the border wall has become a legacy issue, but the designers point out that George W. Bush and Barack Obama have installed vast stretches of walls and deported thousands of immigrants. Rael said: “[Trump] ran on a platform of saying that he was going to build a wall as if some savior had finally arrived to build a wall but in fact, two-thirds of the wall had already been constructed.”
Donald Trump visited the border fence in the Rio Grande Valley area in Texas. The official trip is one of his last as President of the United States of America. His administration cited how the president kept his word to build a “big beautiful wall”.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), say more than 450 miles of the wall had been erected during Trump’s term. Much of the construction had replaced the existing dilapidated and rustic barriers. The CBP noted only 80 miles of fences erected in areas that had never existed before.
Learn more about Pink Seesaw Across the Borders on YouTube and the designers who won the award Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello on LinkedIn.
Check out more of our new ArtSpeak Series here.