The border wall, increasingly a metaphor for division, just became a symbol of unity (at least for a small section).
After artists placed three hot pink seesaws between slats on a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, people on both sides gathered to participate in the art installation for half an hour this week.
“Perhaps the best way to illustrate the mutual relationship that we have with Mexico and the United States is by imagining a teeter-totter where the actions on one side had a direct consequence on what happens on the other side,” Ronald Rael, one of the artists responsible for the Teeter-Totter Wall, said in a Ted Talk this spring. “Because you see the border itself is both a symbolic and literal fulcrum for U.S.-Mexico relations.”
Rael, a University of California, Berkeley architecture professor, partnered with San Jose State interior design professor Virginia San Fratello through their architecture studio, Rael San Fratello, to create the installation, which immediately went viral.
In his Ted Talk, Rael said he was inspired by the architect Hassan Fathy, who said, “Architects do not design walls, but the spaces between them.”
Politically charged art can make a powerful statement, but it can easily be done poorly. By reimagining a politicized space as a place of unity, the Teeter-Totter Wall did it well.
On the other hand, another viral sensation, Fearless Girl, attempted to represent women’s fortitude in the face of inequality by having the statue stare down Wall Street’s Charging Bull. But the bull wasn’t a metaphor for Wall Street bros, it was an expression of a booming economy.
Fearless Girl’s appearance began a literal pissing match, as another artist erected Pissing Pug next to the statue. Despite becoming a national, Instagrammable sensation, Fearless Girl turned feminist activism into a corporate stunt.
The Teeter-Totter Wall, however, made a brief and powerful statement. Whatever people believe about immigration, the balancing participants on each side of the wall remind them of their shared humanity.
The Teeter-Totter Wall represents the power of art when it intersects with politics and makes its statement well. “The border wall is thought of as a sort of political theater today,” Rael said. “So perhaps we should invite audiences to that theater.”
