Canstruction 2015

Last year my mom and I went to see the results of the Canstruction contest on a whim, but it was surprisingly fun, so we went back to see this year's entries. Canstruction is a national contest whose purpose is to raise awareness about hunger, and all canned goods used to create the sculptures are donated to local food banks.

We both agreed that last year's contest produced better results, but there were still some interesting creations this year. There was the inevitable Trump appearance (with the Democratic side featuring... CAN-ye West?), two sculptures featuring Yoshi, a Golden Gate bridge made from spaghetti boxes over a bay of sea salt (cute), a rocket ship, bat signal, dragon, boxing turtle (?), Harold and the Purple Cans (aw), an eyeball, the WashingCAN monument (groan), a butterfly, PacMan and a Cookie Monster made primarily of tuna (ew).

The best of the bunch included an homage to Bugs Bunny, complete with carrot, a charging bull and Magic 8-Ball (which I overheard someone call "a hand holding a world," - sorry, try again). My very favorite was a dual subway scene, featuring the dreaded manspread on one side, and a person demonstrating proper bag-holding procedure on the other. Its accompanying sign said that courtesy is "CANtagious." We overheard a little boy interpreting the scene as "someone sitting on a toilet"—a more accurate description of the New York subway experience, there isn't.