Meet Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, a pair of Californian architects who came up with the idea of placing seesaws in between the metal slats of the US-Mexico border wall to allow children on each side to play together. The inspiration first struck a decade ago, but the bureaucracy involved in setting up an approved art installation on the heavily guarded border proved a nightmare. Despite ten years of obstacles Rael and Fratello refused to let the idea go.
Eventually, they realized the solution was the same cross-border collaboration the project was designed to inspire. With the help of a group of Mexican artists, Colectivo Chopeke, the architects ditched the approval process and went guerrilla. The team redesigned the installation to be assembled as quickly and covertly as possible and in July 2019 the seesaws were smuggled into place with one team coming from El Paso in Texas and the other from the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez.
Nicknamed the ‘Teeter-Totter Wall’, the project lasted less than 40 minutes before border patrol intervened, but it was long enough for children on both sides to play together. The brief moment of unity was captured on camera, and now the team are back in the headlines after winning the London Museum’s prestigious Design of the Year Award 2020. “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,” Virginia San Fratello said, “It speaks to the fact that most people are excited about being together, and about optimism, possibility and the future. And the divisiveness actually comes from the minority.” MOMA
