yay! canstruction!

What do you call it when a bunch of artists make a building full of sculptures out of cans of food?
Canstruction, of course!

(From their website: "A foundation of the Society for Design Administration (SDA), Canstruction® is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students mentored by these professionals, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food.")

Last year was my inaugural year, and, like many good things done more than once, the second time didn't quite live up to the first, but it was delightful in its own ways.
My favorites from this year include:

..The cute little car from Cars, that, if I were younger or older (or married with children, rather), I'd probably be able to name. I think I'm thankful that I can't.
Also on the kiddie tip... although this one's universal.
Hmmm, I'm sensing a theme here. Strangely, most of the attendees were adults. I thought for sure this would be something kids would want to see, but then again, it's probably something kids would much rather smash apart, so it's probably best to keep them home.
I liked this one because it was both retro and meta at the same time. (Don't forget, all the cans in the sculptures and the cans donated as entrance fees go to food banks -- one sculpture of a polar bear was made entirely of ingredients for New England Clam Chowder, all of which had been packaged and processed in New England. Talk about meta!)

And then, every year, there seems to be a pervading element. Last year there were lots of dragons/loch ness monsters (another one showed up this year, too), but this year, everyone had somewhat more of a dairy thing going on...

I scream:

You scream:
We all scream:

My two favorites, though, were both way cooler in person.
There was a sign at this stop saying "View through your camera or SQUINT." (I guess the woman at the front desk was tired of telling people what this was.) (It's Mona Lisa, if you can't see it.)
And this one was pretty dazzling to look at -- the color, which is not well reflected, thanks to my crap-o camera, came from the fact that it was constructed entirely from canned salmon. (bleck!)

A funny note about last year's canstruction -- if you look back at the old link, you'll see a collapsed statue. Yeah, that's the one that won the judges' award for structural integrity.

Oops.

This year's exhibit runs through tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5pm and costs only a can of food. You should check it out of if you can. It's really pretty amazing.