Section:GDN 1N PaGe:19 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 19:38 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 31 July 2019 The Guardian •Afrofuturism 19
No black artists in
Berlin exhibition
Page 21Sudan
Activists cancel talks
after children killed
Page 20Border wall
The seesaws
that unite
Mexican and
US children
Lanre Bakare
Arts and culture correspondentA set of fl uorescent pink seesaws
has been built across the US-Mexico
border by two professors seeking to
bring a playful concept of unity to the
two sides of the divide.
The seesaws, installed along
the steel border fence on the out-
skirts of El Paso in Texas and Ciudad
Ju árez in Mexico, are the invention of
Ronald Rael , a professor of architec-
ture at the University of California,
Berkeley , and Virginia San Fratello , an
associate professor of design at San
Jos é State University , who fi rst came
up with the concept 10 years ago.
In an Instagram post that has
received tens of thousands of likes,
children and adults can be seen play-
ing and interacting on both sides of the
fence using the seesaws, which pro-
vide “a literal fulcrum” between the
countries, according to Rael.
He said the event was about bring-
ing “joy, excitement and togethernessSwed ish trial A$AP Rocky
pleads not guilty to assault
Baltimore is one of America’s
great historic cities. Some areas are
prospering, with tourism, fi ne dining
and a thriving arts scene. But others
are struggling and t he population
is shrinking. More than one in fi ve
people live in poverty. There have
been more than 300 murders a
year for four consecutive years; the
annual toll is now higher than New
York, a city 14 times as populous.
Maryland’s seventh congressional
district, which Cummings
represents, includes affl uent
suburbs, Johns Hopkins University
and the Baltimore Museum of Art
as well as West Baltimore, where
pavements are cracked, shopkeepers
are shielded by bulletproof glass
and abandoned terrace houses have
boarded up windows and gardens
overgrown with weeds.
George Foster, eating chips, apple
pie and sweet tea at a McDonald’s
restaurant, recalled being mugged
for $5 last year. “Most of the crime
is drug related,” he said. “It’s an
epidemic of drugs. It makes people
act irrationally.”
Foster, 68, a retired butcher,
suggested Trump was out of touchJon HenleyA$AP Rocky has pleaded not guilty
to assault at the start of his trial in
Sweden in a case that has strained
international relations after celebrity
entertainers rallied to the US rapper’s
cause and Donald Trump publicly
demanded his release.
Prosecutors allege the platinum-
selling artist, whose real name is
Rakim Mayers , and two members of
his entourage “deliberately, together
and in agreement” attacked the alleged
victim, Mustafa Jafari , in the Swedish
capital on 30 June.
The men, who say they were
responding to harassment and prov-
ocations, have been in custody since
3 July and face up to two years in prison
if the assault charges are upheld.
“He admits that he threw the plain-
tiff on the ground, that he stepped on
his arm and punched or pushed his
shoulder,” Mayers’ lawyer, Slobodan
Jovicic, told the court, but insisted that
it was a case of self-defence.
Entertainment industry figures
including Kim Kardashian West havethe prosecutor said. This led to a con-
frontation in which a bodyguard “fi rst
pushed away the plaintiff , then lifted
him up by the throat”.
Suneson said the brawl escalated in
neighbouring Olofs gatan, where the
19-year-old was beaten.
The prosecutor showed the court
police photographs of bloodstains and
broken glass , as well as of Jafari’s inju-
ries, which included a broken rib and
cuts to his head, arms and legs that
required hospital treatment.
Lawyers for Mayers said Jafari had
initiated the violence.
Cross-examined by Suneson, Jafari,
an Afghan national, said he had been
attacked by Mayers’ group, at least
two of whom “tried to stab me with
a broken bottle”. He said he had been
unable to work since.
The case turned into a minor diplo-
matic incident after Kardashian West
appealed directly to Trump, prompt-
ing the president to tweet that he
would “call the very talented Prime
Minister of Sweden to see what we can
do about helping A$AP Rocky”.
Löfven issued a statement saying
that in Sweden the judicial system was
completely independent.
Trump subsequently tweeted that
he was “very disappointed” in Löfven,
adding: “Give A$AP Rocky his FREE-
DOM. We do so much for Sweden but
it doesn’t seem to work the other way
around. Sweden should focus on its
real crime problem!”backed a #JusticeForRocky campaign.
The US president called the Swedish
prime minister, Stefan Löfven , to ask
that the rapper be freed on bail – a sys-
tem that does not exist in Sweden.
The public prosecutor, Daniel Sune-
son , showed the court phone and
CCTV footage that he said showed
Mayers and the two other men kick-
ing and beating Jafari and hitting him
with all or part of a glass bottle.
Jafari is claiming 139,700 Swedish
kronor (£12,0 00) in damages.
Suneson said the incident started
outside a restaurant on Hötorget in
the city centre. Mayers and his group
were approached by the plaintiff and
another man who were argumentative ,▲ A court sketch shows A$AP Rocky,
centre, with his defence lawyer▲ A man walks past a Baltimore
mural dedicated to Freddie Gray,
who died in a police van in 2015
PHOTOGRAPH: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPAat the border wall”. He added that it
was also about fi nding “meaningful
ways on both sides with the recogni-
tion that the actions that take place on
one side have a direct consequence on
the other side ”.
The US -Mexico border has become
one of the defi ning features of Donald
Trump’s presidency. His promise to
“build a wall” between the two coun-
tries has yet to materialise but crowded
migrant detention facilities , the use
of teargas at the border and the sep-
aration of children from their parents
are among some of the controversial
tactics deployed by US authorities as
their stance has become more hostile
under the Trump administration.
The US supreme court recently
ruled in the US president’s favour and
allowed him to use $2.5bn (£2.05bn)
of Pentagon funds on four contractsto replace existing sections of barrier
with fencing in Arizona, California and
New Mexico.
Other art projects have been
planned for the border. Estudio 3.14,
an architectural practice in Mexico,
designed a pink interpretation of
Trump’s border wall inspired by the
20th-century Mexican architect Luis
Barragán , employ ing the pink pastel
colour he often used in his designs.
Dozens of artists have used the wall
as a setting for projects, including the
Japanese art collective Chim-Pom ,
which created a treehouse in Tijuana
with “USA Visitor Center” written on
the side.▲ Youngsters line up to take turns on
the seesaws that straddle the fence
near El Paso and Cuidad Juárez
PHOTOGRAPH: RRAEL/INSTAGRAMwith the real urban experience.
“He’s not living the reality,” he said.
“He’s been a rich man all his life and
he doesn’t understand what it is to
be a poor person living in a big city
with cutbacks, schooling problems.
He’s an embarrassment to the
country.”
Sitting at a nearby table ,
Christopher Hill , a 53-year-old IT
professional with a master’s degree
who moved from Connecticut in
2016, argued that city-bashing was a
politically useful proxy for racism.
He said: “The city has a lot of
woes – but what city doesn’t have
woes? The cities Trump is singling
out have a high proportion of African
Americans. He can hide behind
the grey areas and say, ‘That’s not
what I meant’, but a person in rural
Pennsylvania might just know
there’s black people in the city and
think they’re the cause of all the
death and destruction and what he
calls fi lth.”lks
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