The Wall/El Muro: What Is a Border Wall? examines the border wall from the perspective of architecture and design. By focusing on the built environment, visitors will understand that a border wall makes real—and internationally consequential—something that is otherwise relatively symbolic. This exhibition addresses the ways in which the architecture and landscape of security surround us and challenge us as we imagine America.

The Wall/El Muro will deploy photography, video, artifacts, and immersive exhibition design to help visitors understand and think about the role of design, architecture, planning, and engineering in the realm of national security and geopolitics. The exhibition will situate the wall in the wider, international context of shifting border lines, the early construction of border fences, and old and new border walls throughout the world. Encouraging visitors to be curious and engaged in this international conversation, ultimately, The Wall/El Muro will argue for a more nuanced understanding of the borderlands and new ways for visitors to think about this issue moving forward.