The Neon pink seesaw installation that allowed people to play and interact over the US-Mexico border has won the prestigious ‘Design of the Year‘ 2020 award. Its creators, Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello hope the work motivates people to build bridges between communities rather than borders.
San Fratello noted:
I think it’s become increasingly clear with the recent events in our country that we don’t need to build walls; we need to build bridges.
San Fratello is an Associate Professor of Design at San José State University, and Rael is an Architecture Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. The duo initially came up with the idea around ten years ago after the Secure Fence Act 2006, which authorized and partially funded large-scale building of fencing along the Mexican border.
However, it wasn’t until July 28, 2019, that the ‘Teeter-Totter Wall‘ became a reality. The seesaws were installed through a part of the border fence near El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. For 40 minutes, Mexican and American families interacted and played on both sides.
While the fluorescent creations were quickly taken down, images and videos of the event soon went viral. Rael describes the seesaws as “a literal fulcrum” between the countries.
Rael added:
Walls don’t stop people from entering our Capitol. Walls don’t stop viruses from moving. We have to think about how we can be connected and be together without hurting each other.
The pink color was inspired by the femicide memorials in Ciudad Juarez, which pay tribute to women brutally murdered in the violent border city. In 2019, there were 1,500 murders in Juárez (the peak was 3,622 in 2010), and in 2020 things didn’t look any better. Lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic led to a 15% increase in homicides in Juárez in the first half of 2020.
The border wall has become a legacy ‘issue’ for Donald Trump. However, the designers highlight that George W Bush and Barack Obama also built large stretches of walls and deported thousands of people. “Trump ran on a platform of saying that he was going to build a wall as if some Saviour had finally arrived to build a wall, but in fact, two-thirds of the wall had already been constructed,” Prof. Rael explained.
Awards were also given to various category winners with prizes recognizing innovation in fashion, product, architecture, graphics, transport, and digital:
- The fashion prize went to the vegan leather, gender-neutral ‘Telfar’ bag,
- The product award was given to the vegan ‘Impossible Burger 2.0,’
- The architecture prize was given to Social Design Collaborative’s ‘portable school design,’
- The graphics prize went to the ‘3D rendering of the Covid-19 virus’ by Dan Higgins and Alissa Eckert,
- The digital prize was given to the Chilean feminist group ‘Colectivo LASTESIS.’
