November 9, 2014: CANstruction NYC

Every year this is one of my favorite events to attend: It’s CANstruction New York hosted by @ArtsBrookfield and benefiting City Harvest food bank. In this event, various engineering, architectural and other organizations create sculptures made out of cans of food (thus CANstruction). After a period of display to the public, these food items are then donated to City Harvest. Attendees are also encouraged to bring canned and other non-perishable food items for City Harvest. It’s a good cause and the sculptures are frequently amazingly creative, display impressive engineering, and are just plain artistic.

There were 27 sculptures total. A couple of them appeared to have suffered something of a disaster (that is had fallen down). Below the cut I have 11 of my favorites (in addition to awards that I made up that I’d give them if I were the one handing out awards, lol)

November 2, 2013: CANstruction 2013 in New York

Date: November 2, 2013 (though this goes through 11/13)
Event: CANstruction 2013 in New York
Location: Lower Manhattan, New York City
Summary: It's art! Made of food! Then donated to charity!

Tis the season of some of my favorite events. October 31 and the Halloween Parade is quickly followed by a myriad of other New York events that mark the end of the year and the Holidays. And many of those events are charity benefits of one kind or another. This is one of those: it’s called CANstruction

I first discovered CANstruction back in 2008 and have attended the event every year since then. What is CANstruction you ask? Well, their website states, “Canstruction, Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that holds annual design and build competitions to construct fantastic, giant sized, structures made entirely out of canned food. In each city after the structures are built and the winners declared the creations go on view to the general public as giant art exhibits. At the close of the competition all of the Cansculptures are dismantled food used in the structures is donated to the local food banks for distribution to community emergency feeding programs.”

It’s art. It’s engineering. It’s free to view. It helps feed the hungry.

It’s win-win-win-win.

Of course I go every year!

This year wasn’t the biggest exhibit they’ve had, but I must say I truly enjoyed the sculptures. Every year so inventive and imaginative and impressive. I love the creativity and appreciate the engineering.

In encourage everyone that can to look it up in their city – this isn’t confined to New York. Go. Enjoy. Take some canned goods to donate. A morning well spent. :) (remember, it's open through Nov 13 in New York!

Below are pictures of my favorites of the 27 sculptures they had.