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Hi all
For the last two and a half months I have been working on an interesting project with some of my friends and I decided to share this with you.
As you know, there is an economical crisis in almost all the countries in the world right now. It is especially hard in our country. Our country joined the European union in 2004, since then many things have gone up, but more things have gotten worse. For example, the prices in our country are just a little higher than in the old European countries (UK, Germany, ect.), but in the same time our average salaries are 5-6 times lower. All the industry has been sold out, the retired people have big trouble live on their pensions. Many schools are being closed down, farmers can barely exist with what they can earn and on top of that we have the biggest inflation of all European countries. But in the same time our government is wasting money in building a bridge across a river of average width for about a billion dollars (yes, that is 1000 000 000$), building a national library for a little less money and wasting money all around in a whole lot of other useless projects. We all know that this is a way for someone with good connections to get very rich, because all those things simply can not cost that much. There are many examples in other countries when bigger and more complex objects were built for half as much money. And in the same time the government is asking us to live more economical and not to spend money too much money in things we do not need to help the economy. But what example are they showing us? I mean, we do need that bridge and maybe even that library, but not at that cost and not now, in this crisis time. There are so much other areas where that money is ore needed, for example kindergartens, schools, hospitals and fire stations which are in a bad shape right now. And they constantly keep generating such overpriced projects in the same time ignoring the priorities. The last straw was when they decided to waste about 80000$ to make a big, 4m high and 6m long sculpture of a pig out of foam. The pig would symbolize bacon which was the main export good in the forties. And this would be only a temporary sculpture till they get about 600 000$ for a stone pig. Isn't this just silly? Why waste the money in these times of need for a temporary sculpture? They could better fix a whole lot of holes in our roads with that money. This decision of theirs made a whole lot of people very angry, also me. Enough is enough.
Then a silly idea came in my mind. Maybe we could calculate all expenses that such project would require and try to build our own pig sculpture to prove that it indeed can be done MUCH cheaper
As we were talking with some friends, they said that they would be supporting me with a donation if I indeed tried to do this. I proposes this idea in some forums and got amazingly huge support from hundreds of people that wanted to show what they think about our government in such a humorous way. We decided to make the pig in form of a money box in golden color, that symbolizes how our government is asking us to save money, but in the same time they are wasting money everywhere they can. The pig would be about 4m high, 2.5m in diameter and 5m long. And this sculpture would eventually be placed somewhere in the capital city near the government buildings.
When I officially opened a web site for this project with all the donation info, there was so much support from all the people, that at the first week we had already 1000$. So we started working. We are no artists or sculptors, so we had a lot of problems to solve, but eventually we managed to build a big, golden moneybox in a shape of a pig. We worked only at our free time after work, that is why it took so long, but we were constantly supported by people around and encouraged. When government officials saw how much support we had what people thought about them, they decided to abandon the idea of a foam sculpture thus saving 60000$, I realize it is not much, but it is a first step and I hope that this project will encourage others to be more active to do something about the situation we're in. We decided to keep working on our pig so that it could be a constant reminder for the government for what people think about them and their pig-work. Finally the pig was ready and we placed it in my town on the towns 800 year anniversary. The response was simply amazing, there were thousands and thousands of people who came and wanted to take pictures of the pig. They even had to stand in lines to take the picture.Everyone just loved our pig.
So the project was a big success and showed us that we in fact CAN and need to do something about the situation we are in. We have spent about 2000$ on this sculpture and have still 600$ of the donated money left that we will give to charity showing the government officials how they should be working. Not a single penny will remain for ourselves.
Here are some pictures of our little, golden pigy:
For the last two and a half months I have been working on an interesting project with some of my friends and I decided to share this with you.
As you know, there is an economical crisis in almost all the countries in the world right now. It is especially hard in our country. Our country joined the European union in 2004, since then many things have gone up, but more things have gotten worse. For example, the prices in our country are just a little higher than in the old European countries (UK, Germany, ect.), but in the same time our average salaries are 5-6 times lower. All the industry has been sold out, the retired people have big trouble live on their pensions. Many schools are being closed down, farmers can barely exist with what they can earn and on top of that we have the biggest inflation of all European countries. But in the same time our government is wasting money in building a bridge across a river of average width for about a billion dollars (yes, that is 1000 000 000$), building a national library for a little less money and wasting money all around in a whole lot of other useless projects. We all know that this is a way for someone with good connections to get very rich, because all those things simply can not cost that much. There are many examples in other countries when bigger and more complex objects were built for half as much money. And in the same time the government is asking us to live more economical and not to spend money too much money in things we do not need to help the economy. But what example are they showing us? I mean, we do need that bridge and maybe even that library, but not at that cost and not now, in this crisis time. There are so much other areas where that money is ore needed, for example kindergartens, schools, hospitals and fire stations which are in a bad shape right now. And they constantly keep generating such overpriced projects in the same time ignoring the priorities. The last straw was when they decided to waste about 80000$ to make a big, 4m high and 6m long sculpture of a pig out of foam. The pig would symbolize bacon which was the main export good in the forties. And this would be only a temporary sculpture till they get about 600 000$ for a stone pig. Isn't this just silly? Why waste the money in these times of need for a temporary sculpture? They could better fix a whole lot of holes in our roads with that money. This decision of theirs made a whole lot of people very angry, also me. Enough is enough.
Then a silly idea came in my mind. Maybe we could calculate all expenses that such project would require and try to build our own pig sculpture to prove that it indeed can be done MUCH cheaper
As we were talking with some friends, they said that they would be supporting me with a donation if I indeed tried to do this. I proposes this idea in some forums and got amazingly huge support from hundreds of people that wanted to show what they think about our government in such a humorous way. We decided to make the pig in form of a money box in golden color, that symbolizes how our government is asking us to save money, but in the same time they are wasting money everywhere they can. The pig would be about 4m high, 2.5m in diameter and 5m long. And this sculpture would eventually be placed somewhere in the capital city near the government buildings.When I officially opened a web site for this project with all the donation info, there was so much support from all the people, that at the first week we had already 1000$. So we started working. We are no artists or sculptors, so we had a lot of problems to solve, but eventually we managed to build a big, golden moneybox in a shape of a pig. We worked only at our free time after work, that is why it took so long, but we were constantly supported by people around and encouraged. When government officials saw how much support we had what people thought about them, they decided to abandon the idea of a foam sculpture thus saving 60000$, I realize it is not much, but it is a first step and I hope that this project will encourage others to be more active to do something about the situation we're in. We decided to keep working on our pig so that it could be a constant reminder for the government for what people think about them and their pig-work. Finally the pig was ready and we placed it in my town on the towns 800 year anniversary. The response was simply amazing, there were thousands and thousands of people who came and wanted to take pictures of the pig. They even had to stand in lines to take the picture.Everyone just loved our pig.
So the project was a big success and showed us that we in fact CAN and need to do something about the situation we are in. We have spent about 2000$ on this sculpture and have still 600$ of the donated money left that we will give to charity showing the government officials how they should be working. Not a single penny will remain for ourselves.
Here are some pictures of our little, golden pigy:
Your conviction, follow through and sheer determination have blown me away...
)
Also I have to say a big thanks to our forum member Lemontree, who also participated in this project and did a great work. 
As an art teacher, I give you an A-PLUS for the perfect creation of your golden piggy sculpture!!! He is AWESOME, as You Are!!! 
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