artist cosimo cavallaro is building a cotija cheese wall at the US-mexico border

italian-canadian artist cosimo cavallaro has begun construction on his six-feet-high (1.8 meter) wall at the US-mexico border, which is being built with large blocks of expired cotija cheese. developed in response to the political environment we are living in today, the installation seeks to make people look at the wall in a different way, and make us realize that no matter which side of it we are standing, we are all the same.

images by alan shaffer, courtesy of the artist

‘I don’t like walls,’ notes cavallaro. ‘so this is a wall that I can handle, this is a wall I can live with, because this wall is a perishable, it will not last. the cheese is spoiled. it just means that for the regulations it’s not to be consumed.’ while construction begun on monday, 25 march, the cheese wall’s length depends on donations collected through the project’s funding campaign, as well as on the sales of ‘make america grate again’ merchandise. supported by non-profit organization art above ground, the artist is trying to raise $500,000 to purchase the expired blocks of cheese needed, rent the land, and compensate the workforce –  a sum much smaller than the $10 billion it may take to build other walls.

‘when art becomes reality is that special moment when there is no return,’ cavallaro explains in a statement on the project’s website. ‘a lot of art is just an object in space, you can move it from one place to another, however, when you cover a room in cheese or ketchup or any other perishable, you can’t rip that off, the experience is so real and lives in our minds where the only way to experience it again is through photographs. we have an expiration date here in our planet and the only way we can last is through a documentation of our being. this wall is a documentation of our times, this is a moment where we are talking about an issue, about walls…’

project info:

artist: cosimo cavallaro