Friendly Frontier is the second is the artists Zoe Walker & Neil Bromwich's Dummy Landscape series. It's an inflatable mountain range, "of the kind so commonly used by nature to divide countries," which is equipped with inflatable evacuation slides. Hovering "poignantly between-child's play and political comment," their statement reads, Friendly Frontier "can be used as a fun means of crossing from one country to the other or as a symbolic means of blurring a boundary."
When they launched the project a couple of years ago, there were plans to take the mountaints on tour "to countries in conflict with their neighbours." Not sure how that turned out, but based on the cities where they have been exhibited --Edinburgh and London--the toy mountain slides have a 100% success rate at resolving cross-border disputes.
They're selling patterns and instructions for sew-your-own Friendly Frontiers, with all proceeds going to fund more Friendly Frontiers.
World peace via balloon mountains is a dream that'll need all the love you can give. Love and £20, including postage. And at those prices, it'll take every day of your life, for as long as you live.
Buy Friendly Frontier and other Dummy Landscapes at Walker & Bromwich [walkerandbromwich.org.uk via strangeharvest.com]
They can take away our inflatable mountain slides, but they can never take away our FREEDOM!!!
Ricola!