Canstruction

On Sunday I went to see some of the entries in this year's Canstruction contest. Canstruction is a national charity that hosts competitions with sculptures that are built entirely out of canned goods. After the entries are exhibited, all of the canned goods are donated to local hunger relief organizations. There are a few places around the city where the sculptures are displayed, but I only went to Brookfield Place in lower Manhattan. There were more sculptures than I had anticipated and it was a fun way to spend a lazy, chilly Sunday afternoon.

The first thing I noticed about the sculptures were that an awful lot of teams used sardines—I really hope New York families in need like canned sardines, because they're about to get thousands and thousands of them. Some of the sculptures were a little abstract, and some were definitely better than others. A few of them seemed to defy the laws of physics all together, or at least tried to—a Derek Jeter-themed one had suffered a complete collapse during construction and had to be reassembled into something more feasible (with quite a few of the cans badly dented).

The dog and owl were cute, the Food Banksy was clever but could have been better (and was impossible to photograph well) and the ones with "hidden" messages were fun to decipher. Of course I loved the New York-themed ones like the apple and the subway station, and I might have squealed with delight when I rounded the corner and saw a tombstone made entirely from cans.

My favorite, however, was definitely the Sta"tuna" of Liberty—Lady Liberty's torch made from Trader Joe's tuna cans—which won a ribbon for "Best Use of Labels" but should have won all-around first place because I will be laughing at that name for a long time.