Canadian artist builds wall of rotting cheese on U.S.-Mexico border

A Canadian artist is building a massive wall of rotting cheese along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Montreal-born Cosimo Cavallaro said the work was something he wanted to do for a long time but never had the right context for, until U.S. President Donald Trump began to make an issue of the border wall.

But unlike Swiss cheese, there are no holes in this wall.

“The message is make America ‘grater’ again,” Cavallaro told CTV News Channel from Los Angeles.

“When you look at this wall of cheese, you can obviously see a wall and you see the waste and it’s evident there.

“And then the other wall you just can’t see the waste, what you see is a sense of intimidation.

“Why spend the money, because you have to waste it somehow, then why not waste it on something that shows you the truth and exposes the reality.”

Cavallaro found the first day at the border wall “very threatening” and compared the feeling to being in a concentration camp.

“Then after the third day of stacking these blocks of cheese it was comforting to have that wall of cheese there. It made me feel more secure,” he said.

Cavallaro said the site-specific work is supposed to “evoke something in you to question what is it that we’re really doing.”

“My journey as an artist is we’re always coming up to a boundary, overcome the boundary and then freedom -- until you meet another boundary,” he said.

Cavallaro has worked with cheese a lot and it’s something that brings him back to his roots, his cheese-making grandparents from Italy, he said.

“I feel it, I smell it and it’s something very strong in my past, very vivid in my present and important to my future,” he said.

“I love that you can smell a work, other than just touch it and look at it.”

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