The prestigious Design of the Year award was won by a series of bright pink seesaws that allowed individuals to connect across the US-Mexico border, with its designers saying they hoped the work would inspire people to create bridges between cultures.
The Teeter Totter Wall, which bridged a 40-minute session across El Paso in Texas and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, was identified by the judging panel as not only feeling “symbolically important,” but also highlighting “the possibility of things.”
The designers of the seesaws, Ronald Rael, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate professor of design at the State University of San José, first came up with the concept a decade ago after the Secure Fence Act 2006, which began construction on the border on a wide scale.
They said they hoped that the design would help people reassess borders’ efficiency and foster dialogue rather than division. San Fratello said: “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.”
“Walls don’t stop people from entering our Capitol,” Rael added. “Walls don’t stop viruses from moving. We have to think about how we can be connected and be together without hurting each other.”
In July 2019, videos of people interacting and playing across the border on Day-Glo creations went viral, with Rael saying they provided the countries with “a literal fulcrum”. The bright pink coloring was influenced by Ciudad Juarez’s femicide memorials, which pay tribute to women murdered in the area.
The designers also took inspiration from political cartoonists and wanted to talk about the border issue in “a very frank way but using humor”.
More than 70 candidates, including a 3D rendering of the virus causing Covid-19, Lee Ha Jun’s set design from Parasite, the Oscar-winning South Korean film, and the union flag stab-proof vest worn at Glastonbury 2019 by Stormzy, were competing for the winning design.
Six category winners were also presented with awards celebrating creativity in goods, design, multimedia, fashion, graphics, and transport.
Source: The Guardian