THE MAKING OF THE PIGGY BANK FOR OCCUPY PARLIAMENT RELOADED

The MPIG's piggy bank

 Introduction      

 

On Tuesday 11th June 2013 there was a demonstration in front of the Parliament Buildings in Nairobi dubbed 'Occupy Parliament Reloaded' which was an uprising against MP's greed. At the protest,there was a big dummy of a pig to symbolize the greed of MPs together with a small piggy bank was used by the protestors to collect their contributions to members of parliament who were demanding for a salary rise even before they start working. The piggy bank which was regarded as the piglet of the big dummy pig,was designed by a young upcoming artist by the name Paul Ndiang'ui aka Ndiangs. On this blog Ndiangs tells us the story behind the making of the piggy bank and takes us through the process itself.

Mother Pig and her piglet

Who or what inspired you to make the piggy bank?

        Apart from being an artist, I have been a human rights activist for quite some time now. It was a friend and fellow activist who upon telling him that I love art suggested that I could use my artworks to put across my message during demonstrations. I realized that he had a good point and thus sought out to come up with an good idea of a design for the 'Occupy Parliament Reloaded' protest which was in a week's time. As I was doing my research I came across an article in the Daily Nation by Macharia Gaitho dated 3rd June 2013 which was titled 'Next time the people protest against MPs, the Executive should step aside'. A part extracted from the article read as follows:

'Yes, if we do not stop the greedy legislators who want to ride roughshod over the wishes of Kenyans in order to loot and plunder, we can say goodbye to democracy and allow a handful of thugs to turn the Treasury into their own piggy bank.'

       It was after reading that section that the idea of making a piggy bank came to my mind.

Ndiangs and his piggy bank

So what materials did you use?

I used simple and readily available materials such as:

• Carton/Used boxes
• Drinking straws
• Office Glue and 2" Masking tape
• Scissors/Razor blade
• Tissue Paper/Used paper
• Rulers and a protractor
• Pencil
• Water colour/Acrylics 
• Paint Brush 
• Water

 What's the procedure?

1. I,first, made sketches of the body and faces of the piggy bank

2. I,then, tried to find out which solid forms would be appropriate for the model I was intending to make.For instance,I used truncated icosahedron(football) for the body and dodecahedron for the head.I learnt this in my 3 Dimensional design class at K.U. and got the templates online from www.korthalsaltes.com

3. I used the carton as my main material and using a protractor and a ruler made the necessary measurements when drawing.I later cut out the shapes using the scissors.

4. I joined the shapes together using the masking tape.

4. I attached all the models together to my desired form

5. I made a mixture of water and office glue.I then placed tissue or used paper on the model then pasted it with the concotion using a paint brush.I later left it to dry.
Once dry,I coloured the model using water colours.I also cut out pieces of carton to make the eyes,ears,teeth and others.

and there you have it,the piggy bank with my message to the Members of parliament encoded on it.

 

 I know the piggy bank was small though to accommodate all the contributions you had for your MPs. Next time I will make a bigger one hehe. I now leave you to watch what went on at the protest.Thanks for your time!