Divine Comedy from a pig point of view

Student: Cecil Mariani
Project: “One Little Piggy: Divine Comedy.”
This bifurcated book looks at the pig as an object for food, and as a sentient being.

I come from Indonesia where a majority of people consider pork products an abomination based on Muslim spiritual beliefs. I grew up in a Chinese family, a cultural minority who actually consume pork all the time without a problem. The idea for this bifurcated book grew out of my fascination for cooking and enjoying tasty pork mixed with feelings about the sad fate of an industrial pig here in America. I decided to combine the tale of the three little pigs with Dante Alleghiery’s Divina Comedia. Upon further research I also discovered the Dutch artist Christtien Meinderstma, who catalogues 180 different products made out of one pig. Her amazing works and research provided me with more startling facts for my book.

One little Piggy Divine Comedy is divided in three chapters: the Piglet Inferno, the Piglet Purgatorio, the Piglet Paradiso. There is a linear plot with double stories about the fate of a pig from the cage to the butcher (inferno), into the afterlife as products that weave into our everyday life (purgatorio), which in the end rise to be inspiration and a source of discourse (paradiso).