victongai: 2012 Victo Ngai ~ The Day

These 2 pieces are for the Liberty magazine Nov/Dec 2012 issue.

The feature story is about a proposed legislation in Europe requiring observance of Sunday as the day of rest. You can read the story here. 

The growing European Sunday Alliance is made up of powerful labor unions, so-called civil society organizations and of course the Orthodox churches and many Lutheran churches. They believe a compulsory rest day is neccesary for the well being of Europeans’ health, family and society. Their reasoning for picking “Sunday” as “the Day” is that most people already have the day off on Sundays. 

The opposition of the movement argues that having Sunday as the Rest Day would do more harm than good as it’s a violation of  ”Seperation of State and Church” and “democratic choices”.

”Seventh-day Aventists worship on Saturdays. Muslims, meanwhile, worship on Friday, and Islam has become a sizable and powerful minority throughout Europe in recent times.”

The editor proposed a simple yet effective direction for the illustrations: a pleasant sun over a peaceful, rural European landscape for the cover; a threatening sun with the all seeing eye over the same landscape for the interior. 

As you can see from the sketches - I had a pretty clear idea of how I want to approach the cover but was toying with different possibilities with the interior.

What if the all-seeing eye sun is casting a shadow over the landscape instead of brightening the day? Or appearing among stormy clouds? Or a laser beam shooting out from the eye and burning the houses (what was I thinking?)…

Great thanks to AD Bryan!