Message behind cheesy border wall is that it’s wasteful: artist

With a promise to “Make America Grate Again,” a Canadian artist has taken the initiative to start work on the United States president’s border wall.

But it’s not made of any of materials that formed the wall prototypes that were under study last year — it’s made of cheese.

Cosimo Cavallaro has begun construction of a wall made of Mexican cheese just a couple of meters away from a barbed wire-topped border fence in Tecate, California, opposite the Mexican city of the same name in Baja California.

Cavallaro is building his 305-meter-long with blocks of expired cotija cheese from Michoacán, and hopes the waste on evidence in his wall will help people reach the same conclusion about the wall proposed by Donald Trump.

“To spend all this money to keep dividing the countries, I think is a waste. You see the waste in my wall, but you can’t see the waste in [Trump’s] $10-billion wall, which in time will be removed?”

The new border wall takes shape near Tecate, Baja California.
The new border wall takes shape near Tecate, Baja California.

Cavallaro is known for working with perishable food in his art to demonstrate what he sees as decadence in the way people live and the fleeting nature of material goods. In previous projects, Cavallaro used 200 pounds of chocolate to create a statue of Jesus Christ, constructed a bed from ham and covered a hotel room in mozzarella.

The artist said he decided to go ahead his longstanding idea to build a cheese wall in 2016 when Donald Trump announced his intention to construct a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

He explained that he also draws inspiration from “our cheesy times,” such as late last year right before an impending shutdown of the U.S. Congress over funding for the actual border wall. He said House Republicans called an emergency meeting to address a cheese bill called the Curd Act, a proposal to allow cheeses to be advertised as natural despite having artificial ingredients.

Cavallaro said that so far border patrol agents have not interfered with his work on the wall, which currently measures 1.5 meters high and nine meters long. The artist said all the funding for the $100 blocks of cheese and the rent of the 14-acre plot of land where he is building has come from a GoFundMe campaign and sales from t-shirts and mugs bearing slogans such as, “Make America Say Cheese.”

Cavallaro said he hopes that rather than being seen as a political statement, the installation shows that people are better off without walls that divide and inspire fear.

“It sounds cheesy, but just love one another.”

Source: 24 Horas (sp), Los Angeles Times (en)

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Xochimilco boats with mariachis

MND Local: Xochimilco neighborhoods go dry in September

0
Xochimilco is observing ley seca, Pope Leo XIV has declared a Jubilee Year for Mexico City, and a new boutique hotel has opened with views of the Ángel de la Independencia, writes Drew Pittock.
CUERNAVACA, MORELOS, 15SEPTIEMBRE2026.- Marcha de estudiantes que protestan por el feminicidio de Claudia Tacoronte Aguilera, estudiante española del Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos. Un grupo de jóvenes al llegar a la plaza de armas de la ciudad se dirigieron al Palacio de Gobierno donde pintaron y rompieron algunas ventanas. FOTO: MARGARITO PÉREZ RETANA/CUARTOSCURO.COM

Morelos issues arrest warrant in Spanish exchange student’s murder

0
State authorities are asking for help with the phrase "If you recognize him, report him," as their government is coming under scrutiny for a slow emergency medical reposnse to the stabbing.
corn growing

Women farmers in Oaxaca, Guerrero report catastrophic drought

0
Two farming associations called on state and federal authorities to declare a climate emergency in drought-affected areas of Oaxaca and Guerrero and establish programs aimed at guaranteeing food sovereignty and supporting female farmers.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity