The intangible effects of walls

More barriers exist now than at the end of World War II, says designer Alexandra Auer. And when you erect one wall, you unwittingly create a second -- an "us" versus "them" partition in the mind that compromises our collective safety. With intriguing results from her social design project focused on two elementary schools separated by a fence, Auer encourages us to dismantle our biases and regain perspective on all the things we have in common.

Humankind loves to build walls.

Have you ever noticed that?

We build walls for everything:

for shelter, for protection, for privacy.

Over the past 70 years,

the number of barriers
between countries has doubled.

Right now, there are more walls
than at the end of the Second World War,

more than during the Cold War.

Growing up in Germany,

the fall of the Berlin Wall
always felt to me

like the introduction of a new world,
a world without barriers.

But since the attacks of 9/11,

the construction has experienced
an extreme rise.

Since then, the amount has doubled,

with about 30 new structures
that were planned or built.

Walls and fences are often built
with the intention of security,

security from another group of people,

from crime, from illegal trades.

But walls and fences only provide us
with a feeling of security,

which is different from real security.

Even though they might make us feel safe,

the structures themselves
can't protect us.

Instead, they do something else:

they separate.

They create an us and a them.

They establish an enemy.

Walls make us build a second wall
in our head, a mental wall.

And those mental walls
slowly make us lose sight

of all the things we have in common
with the people on the other side.

The other way around,

mental walls can grow so strong
that they encourage us to build,

keep or strengthen physical walls.

Physical and mental walls
are closely interlinked,

and one almost always
comes with the other.

It's a constant cycle:

physical walls empower mental walls,
and mental walls empower physical walls

until at one point one part falls away,

and the cycle is disrupted.

When the Berlin Wall was being built,

it was hard to tell
who the wall was facing,

because the people living around it
identified as one.

There was no us and them.

There was no others.

During the time of separation,

both sides developed differently
and formed individual identities.

All of a sudden, there was
an us and a them.

A mental wall was built,

and when the Berlin Wall
fell again in 1989,

this mental wall in the head
of the people stayed.

Eastern Germans had to be reintegrated
into their own country,

and even though they didn't
have to move places,

many still today feel like
they have never fully arrived.

Those remaining effects
of the mental wall are also measurable.

A study from the Freie University
of Berlin in 2005

shows that even 15 years
after the reunification,

Germans still believed that cities
on the other side of the former wall

are further away than they really are.

The interesting thing is that they found
a link between political attitude

and estimation of the distance.

The more a participant was against
the German reunification,

the further away
they estimated cities to be.

It's the mental wall which keeps
cities on the other side far away,

and the higher and stronger
this mental wall,

the more difficult
they seem to be reached.

I tried to repeat this study

with a group of young Germans
who grew up without the wall

to see if these effects
are still measurable nowadays.

And the results show that this generation,

my generation,

is just kind of bad
at geography in general --

(Laughter)

East and West.

But in our defense, this could be seen
as an improvement, right?

We never experienced the actual wall.

This physical barrier was never able
to make us build a mental wall

in the first place.

I would love to take this
as a serious indication

that there could be a future
without a mental wall dividing Germany,

but I think we have to face reality:

this one wall could be disappearing,

but in the meanwhile,
a billion others are constructed.

One global trend
we are currently experiencing

is the rise of gated communities.

And in a way, gated communities can be
seen the same exact way as countries,

just on the small scale --

neighborhoods surrounded
by walls and fences

to protect citizens from other citizens --

and the only difference is,
it's by choice.

But the physical and mental effects
on the people living inside

and the people kept outside

are the same,

separating cities, neighborhoods

and even playgrounds.

In the spring of last year,
I worked on a design project in Brussels

at two elementary schools
where this was the case.

Both the schools share an entrance
and the schoolyard.

Both schools teach in Dutch.

But one school is mainly visited
by Belgian children,

and the other school,
by immigrant children.

The schools are separated
by walls and fences,

leaving the children
no point of interaction

other than this fence on the schoolyard
that separates them.

When I started to work there,

it made me sad to see children
having to stand at a fence

to talk to their friend on the other side.

But what's even worse is that
most of the children

will never get the opportunity
to even make a friend on the other side.

School should be the place
where children, all children,

come together and learn --

learn from the teacher,
but more importantly,

learn from each other.

And the more diversity,
the more there is to learn.

In fact, school might be
the only time in our lives

where establishing a contact despite
social differences is even possible.

Separating children during
this time of their development

will make integration extremely difficult,

if not impossible.

And yet, somehow,

I seem to be the only one having
a problem with this fence in Brussels.

Most of the parents, teachers and children

stopped seeing or at least
questioning the structure.

It's just how it is.

Nobody has ever seen it differently.

And people are in favor of it.

I once asked a boy if he would like
to play with the other side,

and he said, "No."

Then I asked if he would play with them
if the fence wasn't there,

and he said, "Probably."

But then he quickly added
that the fence should stay,

because the other side is mean
and they never give back his ball.

It's funny, because I talked
to children from both sides,

and everyone told me
that the other side is mean

because they never give back the ball.

The children on both sides
dislike each other,

and there are regularly arguments
breaking out at this fence,

which is also the main reason
why people feel the need

for it to be there:

it protects the children from each other,

or at least their toys,

and it prevents chaos.

At some point, the children started
to crawl beneath the fence

to get their ball back,

and the reaction of the schools
was to put these metal plates there.

Now they climb over.

I don't know what came first in Brussels:

a mental wall that grew too strong
that it made them build a physical fence,

or this fence that now emphasizes
the social differences,

even on the schoolyard.

But what I did know
when I started to work there

was that I wanted to change something
about the situation.

I wanted to show both sides again
how much they have in common.

For children, this isn't very hard,

because even though
one schoolyard speaks Dutch

and the other schoolyard, a mix
of French, Turkish and Arabic,

they all speak the universal
language of play.

And it turned out the desire to play

is a lot stronger than all
the supposed differences between them.

I installed different games at the fence,

which turned it into an interface,
a common ground,

instead of a barrier.

And all of a sudden,
children were drawing together,

exchanging pencils

and talking on the phone.

Especially the phones
were a great success,

because they were so amazed

by the fact that they can hear
the other side through this device

that they couldn't stop speaking.

In the case of an elementary school,
parents play a very big role

in shaping the everyday life
and the environment of their children.

So I knew that if I wanted
to make a difference,

I had to somehow show them, too,
how much they have in common

with the other side.

But for parents, this was
a lot more difficult,

because most of them
speak different languages,

work different jobs
with different incomes,

live in different social circles,

believe in different religions,

experience different cultures

and share different values.

And then there was me,
a student,

different in all of these aspects again.

So how could I show them

how much they have in common?

I chose not to convince them myself

but by letting their own
children do the talking.

I designed a picture exhibition
on the schoolyard

showing them their children
playing together through the fence.

At the end of this exhibition,

I asked people to write down
their thoughts, ideas and wishes

on these big wooden boxes,

and I labeled the boxes
with, "What do you think?"

A lot of people wrote "Yes" on it.

Yes, what?

I never mentioned my opinion
or an action that should follow,

so which question
were they answering with yes?

When I asked, they said yes,
the fence should go.

Yes, we want to play with the other side.

The pictures implied enough
to answer a question

that was never proposed.

People were seeing the absurdity
of the situation again

and felt how unnecessary this fence is

without me forcing an opinion on them.

The exhibition showed the two sides
their similarities for once.

That day, there was no us and them,

there was no others.

The mental wall started to crumble.

I chose the word "crumbling,"

because breaking a mental wall
is a long journey,

and breaking a mental wall
can be a lot more difficult

than simply tearing down the physical one.

We have to challenge
our opinion and beliefs

and maybe even admit our own wrongs.

So what happened in Brussels
was a big step,

a step that has been taking
generations in Germany.

There are many examples
from all over the world

telling the same story I experienced
in Brussels and Germany,

enough examples from which
we could have learned.

But still, we seek walls as solutions
for problems that they cannot solve,

because walls don't fight
the root of our problem.

If anything, they reduce the symptoms.

So the next time you
are planning to build a wall

or you are planning to support someone
who wants to build a wall,

I want you to remember
the impact you are really having.

Because, this simple structure
will hardly create more security.

Instead, it will affect the people
living with it every day,

people who, despite the geographic border,

often share a lot of culture and values.

For them, you are not building
one wall but two,

two walls which will take decades
and generations to overcome again.

Thank you.

(Applause)