Following an unsuccessful attempt at floating a line of Pink Floyd-style golden pigs in front of the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, architecture studio New World Design has turned its attention to a new piece of protest art. The group is now crowdfunding on GoFundMe to build a 30-foot-tall, golden wall “prototype” outside of the president’s Mar-a-Lago compound and golf course in Florida.
As the government shutdown over $5.7 billion in southern border wall funding has dragged on to become the longest shutdown in history, New World Design is looking to raise $570 million for U.S.-Mexico Border Wall: A Study in Absurdity. The project is a tongue-in-cheek response to the viral, but unsuccessful, campaign to crowdfund the border wall.
The 30-foot-tall, ornamented picket fence would be plated in gold and “lethally” electrified. Six new coal-fired power plants across the U.S.-Mexico border would power the barrier. The group has proposed first installing it at Mar-a-Lago as a “legitimate constructibility test,” a callback to the eight border wall prototypes built and tested in Otay Mesa, California.
This project is much less tangible than Flying Pigs on Parade: A Chicago River Folly, and the group expects that it won’t hit its sky-high goal; any of the money raised will instead be donated to the International Refugee Assistance Program.
