Can they build it? Yes, they can, and it's all for charity
TALK about edible art.
The 11 giant sculptures being unveiled at Polo Park Shopping Centre today are a visual feast that will eventually help feed the hungry.
That's because they were created entirely from cans and boxes of food.
Number Ten architects and Crosier Kilgour engineers teamed up to create a ‘Canbine’.
Investors Group Canstruction Winnipeg is part of a continent-wide competition that combines a "design-and-build" project with a creative way to bolster food banks.
Teams of architects, engineers, designers and contractors were given just 12 hours to transform their non-perishable medium into a masterpiece able to fit in a 10-foot-by-10-foot space and measure no taller than eight feet.
Judging will take place today at 3 p.m. in a tent at the south end of Canad Inns Stadium. Awards will be presented in six competition categories and the winners will be entered in the 99-city Canstruction International Competition.
Most of the Winnipeg artists used CAD (computer-assisted design) to do preliminary drawings before submitting their grocery lists, says project director Doneta Brotchie.
Product labels became their colour palette, can and box shapes their "pixels."
"The food orders included everything from Spam to Jet-Puf marshmallows."
Safeway donated most of the 50,000 food items used in the sculptures, which feature such names as The CANadian Museum for Human Rights, CANstruction continues at the Winnipeg Shareport Authority Inc. and An Incanvenient Truth.
They'll be on display until Oct. 20. During that period the public is invited to cast a ballot for Polo Park Fan Favourite. One donated can of food equals one vote.
"We encourage ballot-stuffing," Brotchie says.
Next Saturday, the sculptures will be "deconstructed" and their contents transported to the east side of Canad Inns Stadium, the weigh-in site for the 2007 edition of the Guiness World Record Food Drive.
Winnipeg will have to collect more than 100,257 tons of canned and boxed goods to beat Regina, which captured the record in 2006 for most food collected in a 24-hour period.
You can help your city win the food fight by dropping off non-perishable items at any Safeway location, or at Canad Inns Stadium on Oct. 20 and 21.
carolin.vesely@freepress.mb.ca
For more information, visit the web at: www.canstructionwinnipeg.com.
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