Don’t you want to think about something good today? I know that I do and so I decided to highlight a wonderful exhibit that Chris and I happened upon while we were in New York City last week.
We were doing a bit of sightseeing and happened to stop in Brookfield Place in search of lunch. What we found was more than lunch. Canstruction® New York 2016 is an ingenious exhibit with a purpose. So what is this amazing event?
An extraordinary annual design competition and the most unique food charity in the world, Canstruction challenges teams of architects, engineers, and contractors to build sculptures made entirely out of unopened cans of food. The large scale structures are placed on display and later donated to City Harvest for distribution to those in need.
There’s that word—extraordinary. You know how much I love that word. So these structures really are taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary. I love it.
We didn’t see every single display but those we did view were fun and creative. 
SNAP! + Hunger is Gone by Gannett Fleming
Who You Gonna Call? Can Busters! by Design Republic
Be-CLAWS We CAN! by Severud Associates
Vincent Can Gogh by Silman
Say Yes to No More Hunger by Arup
Can-Struction Site by ads Engineers
Sashimi Rollin’ by WB Engineers and Construction
A Whale of a Tail! by Studios Architecture
Lean on Me by Dattner Architects
Shine A Bright Light on The Darkness of Hunger by AKF Group
Let’s Put Hunger in a Museum by LPE Engineering PC
Harry the Hungry Hippo by Pekins Eastman/HRBI
The Infamous Pizza Rat by Langan
And finally— a work in progress????
I love to support food pantries and this is an inventive and creative way to do that. If you are in NYC this is one place that you need to check out.
There are 25 can sculptures on exhibition at Brookfield Place which is located at 230 Vesey Street in lower Manhattan from November 3rd to the 16th daily (including weekends) from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. except the 16th, when the exhibit will close at 6 p.m. for the dismantling of the structures. All visitors to the exhibit are encouraged to bring a can of food to donate to City Harvest. The donation bin is located on the second level above 230 Vesey Street retail.
You can even view all of the sculptures and vote on your favorite by clicking here. Tell me your favorite in the comments and I will make a 50 cent donation to our Comments for a Cause –American Diabetes Association.
Can you guess which one is my favorite?
20 Comments
Leave a commentWow! Those are amazing. I saw a post on the 611 (steam train) FB page about something similar. And there were a couple of displays made of cans to resemble the 611 train. Interesting, and for a great cause!
Oh I bet the train ones would be amazing as well. Don’t you love it when people put their talents to work for good?
Vincent Can Gogh has gotta be my favorite! 😀 I love it. Great idea. Would have loved to have seen it in person. Very cool.
I love that one as well. I was amazed at all of the ingenuity. It is amazing to me how they can stack them and have the end result be so stunning. Thanks for taking the time and stopping by and leaving a comment. Means a lot!
Agree!!! Vincent Can Gogh!!!! Awesome (although the hippo made me smile!!!!).
He’s pretty adorable in person. Thanks for stopping by, Doreen! Have missed visiting your blog lately–I need to fix that!
I love this creative idea to raise awareness of hunger.
Choose one? Just one?
Then I’ll go with “Lean on Me” both for the message and the seemingly impossible feat of creating this sculpture.
It’s fun, isn’t it? There were some even better ones we did not see but you get the idea. Amazing!
Love love love this art and these pictures!
The favorite… hard but I have to go with the crab!
Thank your for sharing these, they made my day!
I am glad you liked them! I loved seeing the creativity and the crab was even better in person. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
Love these! How very cool!
Maybe it’s Be-Claws I’m from New England the one I like the most is..”Be-Claws I can”!
I can understand that!!! My fav as well.
Amazing! You find the most wonderful “things”
It’s fun, isn’ t it? And a totally unexpected thing to find when we stopped a the mall!
These are pretty cool, but they instill a bit of fear in me. I am so accident prone, so it’s best I view them from a safe distance–thousand of miles away.
As for my fave, I like the claws one.
Haha. You and me both. I am the head klutz so I stayed far away as well!
I can’t guess your favorite. “Lean On Me” is the most impressive structure, but I love Goya beans so “Infamous Pizza Rat” might be my favorite.
The crab is my fav. 🙂
[…] year when we visited Micah and Wendy in NYC we happened upon another Canstruction event and I blogged about it here. I was excited to see what Houston had to […]