Children on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border had a chance to play together, despite the physical barriers that divide them.
Two California professors installed three pink seesaws through the steel border fence on the outskirts of El Paso in Texas and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.
Ronald Rael, an architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an associate design professor at San Jose State University, first came up with the concept of Teetertotter Wall for the border more than 10 years ago. This week, they saw it become a reality.
"The wall became a literal fulcrum for U.S.-Mexico relations, and children and adults were connected in meaningful ways on both sides with the recognition that the actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other side," Rael said on Instagram.
In a video posted on social media, children and adults on both sides of the fence could be seen playing and interacting. Rael said the event was about bringing "joy, excitement and togetherness at the border wall."
"The symbolism of the seesaw is just magical," said Claudia Tristan, director of Latinx messaging for 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke.
"A border fence will not keep us from our neighbors," she wrote on Twitter.
U.S. President Donald Trump has long promised to build a physical barrier along the country's southern border to keep out people trying to cross into the U.S. illegally.
Late last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the administration could use some $2.5 billion of Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.
