“An Imagined Border of Safety, Humanitarian Relief, and Creativity”: J.M. Design Studio’s Other Border Wall Project

Abstract

 In April 2017, J.M. Design Studio—three Pittsburgh-based artists and designers—responded to the  Customs and Border Protection's public request for proposals for a wall along the US-Mexico border. J.M. Design Studio then announced their own call for more border "wall" proposals from other artists. The following commentary details these prototype concepts and tracks the executive policies and rhetoric that established a foundation for the border wall.  This commentary also shows how J.M. Design Studio’s prototype submission and the subsequent artistic platform they initiated both model how creative connection and the co-option of established public channels are themselves acts of political resistance in an era of disrupted democratic participation and ossified partisanship.