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Winning wall designs

Artists are known for reflecting what they see. Winners of The Reform Institute’s “Design Your Portion of the Border Fence” campaign are no exception.

The winning entries were chosen from nearly 2,000 border fence designs created by entrants who were asked to express what they believe the 700-mile border fence (now under construction) conveys. Contestants used online tools to design and build virtual fences.

The $1,000 scholarship grand prize was awarded to artist Dan Mitteer for a piece titled What am I walling out? Lierin Martin (What does it mean to be an American), Kristin Ahonena (Don’t Fence Me In) and Jasmine Florencio (Living on the Other Side) won the three other awards for Passion Prize, Best American Side and Best Mexican Side, respectively.

“My entry represents the wisdom of great thinkers like Ronald Reagan, who personally denounced the wall between East and West Berlin, and how those same issues are still alive today,” Mitteer is quoted in an institute news release. “My hope is that my entry may encourage people to get involved in the important issue of immigration reform.”

The Alexandria, Va., institute is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan public policy organization, launched the online campaign to create a forum for increasing public awareness on the topic of immigration reform. More than 470,000 interactions with the immigration debate transpired during the campaign, including more than 16,000 votes and 450,000 page views.