Ronald Rael wins Design of the Year Award 2020

In July 2019, pictures of a set of bright pink seesaws installed between El Paso in Texas and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, the US-Mexico border, appeared in everyone’s feeds on social media. This temporary art installation was created by the duo Ron San Frattelo and won the Design of the Year Award 2020. 

“Teeter-Totter Wall” was created as a playful act of resistance towards the borders created between the two countries. The artist saw this political act of division as unnecessary. To which, the bright pink seesaws brought some light to this issue, highlighting that both communities are happy with their interactions and that people will always find their ways to contour this physical border. Through the creation of a playground for all ages, Ron San Frattelo produced a moment of meaningful connection between communities as a starting point to try and bring people together again. 

Watching these people interact with this installation was heart-warming, demonstrating that the borders were not a solution for the problems being faced between both countries, but the problem itself. People on the Mexico side of the border have these walls as their backyard, and they continuously face this division of race, culture and countries. Segmentation is becoming a progressively bigger problem in our 21st-century culture, fermenting hatred for differences. And that is what makes this art installation so powerful- through exposing our differences as irrelevant we can understand that, in the end, we are all human, just trying to understand how to be happy. 

 “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.”

- Ron Rael

The Design of the Year Award is a yearly award hosted by The Design Museum (London) that aims to celebrate designs that can inspire change by capturing a moment in time. And “Teeter-Totter Wall” was all of this and more. After analysing the real impact of this design piece in both communities and its broader political message, we can all agree that this was a well-deserved award. An inspiring and insightful design that provided access for people to merge in a shared moment of joy. 

What do you think about this project?

Do you agree that art can be a powerful tool to fix these kind of issues?

Click here to see all the winning projects. 

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