As a tongue-in-cheek response to Donald Trump’s mission to build a wall along the US and Mexico border, Rotterdam-based Atelier ARI has created an art installation called Open Border. Created for the annual Winnipeg Warming Huts event, the bright orange 9-foot-tall, 120-foot-long “wall” is made of vertical plastic strips that easily let people pass through to the other side.
The Winnipeg Warming Huts event is an arts competition that sees various designers install their art works along a long stretch of the Red River Mutual Trail. The open-air architecture gallery is known for having a number of fun, avant-garde designs, but this year, Atelier ARI’s winning installation is speaking volumes about Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.
Related: Trump will give architects just five days to submit proposals for a Mexican border wall
Visually, Open Border‘s bright orange strips are in stunning contrast to the snowy landscape, inviting curious visitors to walk through from one side to the other. Although fun in nature, the protest art installation makes reference to a seriousness of the worrisome xenophobic international policies being demonstrated not only by the USA’s current administration, but worldwide.
“Creating a wall or border on a route is one the most radical and unnatural architectural statements one can make, which was something we liked a lot,” de Grauw and den Berg told Co.Design. “The moment we came up with the wall we realized this would be a political act as well, relating to the speeches of Trump, but also refugee problems in Europe. [It’s] something you can pass through and a place to gather and warm up.”
The design was strategically crafted to make people contemplate the issue as they pass through the orange curtains. The semi-opaqueness of the PVC strips cause people to be indistinguishable as they pass through, a metaphorical statement on the equality of the entire human race. Atelier ARI explains the significance, “Everybody in the wall becomes dark-red silhouettes. Everybody becomes the same.”
Via Lost at E Minor
