Giant, flying golden pigs to spare city from having to look at Trump's name
Phrases like "when pigs fly" have lost all meaning in the Trump era. So it's no surprise that one group's plan to block the president's name on Trump Tower in downtown Chicago with flying golden pigs is happening.
"Flying Pigs on Parade," a project spearheaded by Jeffrey Roberts from architecture firm New World Design, has been given the go-ahead for a one-day art installation, according to local news reports. The idea first emerged shortly after the election to give "visual relief to the citizens of Chicago by interrupting the view of the ostentatious Trump Tower Chicago sign," the design firm wrote in a blog post last November.
Naturally, the most logical design concept to block the 20-foot tall large gold letters spelling out the president's last name was to float four giant 30-by-15-foot golden pig balloons. The balloons will be tethered to a barge in the Chicago River.
Since the sign went up in 2014 and even more so in the months since Trump's election, efforts to remove the five gold letters from the Chicago building have been discussed. But they still remains up.
The pigs serve more than one purpose. Other than representing the shock of Trump's election, they are reminiscent of Orwell's Animal Farm novella, which fittingly took on government and power. The golden swine also are modeled after the British rock band Pink Floyd's Animals album, featuring the Battersea Power Station pig. The rock group's bass guitarist Roger Waters gave the designers approval to use that floating pig, known as Algie.
The pigs are up for individual interpretation, as well, once they are up and flying. The design firm doesn't want to be labeled as radicals or activists, they wrote. Instead, "the project is a bold visual response to the loud, illogical and frequently hateful expressions that engulfed the elections and now define the activities of U.S. leadership."
The pigs are expected to make appearances in other cities after the Chicago stunt is completed. No word on when the pigs will go up, but the design firm has an online crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the balloons, the boat, preparation, security and more for the one-day event.
When pigs fly...
Topics Donald Trump
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
