CANstruction – Creativity for a Cause

I love when art and creativity have the opportunity to pair for a cause. I just discovered CANstruction a few years ago and it’s now an event that I look forward to each year. The CANstruction displays are a blend of purpose and art.

You can see what the display was like last year here.

This year once again didn’t disappoint. Here is a little more about the mission of CANstruction from their website.

Canstruction is an international community service project of the design and construction industry to benefit community food banks. With the support of local teams, thousands of hungry people are fed; a greater awareness of the issues surrounding hunger is brought to the public while spotlighting the local design and construction industry giving back to the community.

Architects, engineers, designers and contractors compete to design and build fantastic giant-sized structures made entirely out of canned foods. After the structures are built and the winners declared, the creations go on view to the general public as a giant art exhibit. At the close of the competition, all of the food used in the structures is donated to the local food bank for distribution to community emergency feeding programs. Through the generosity of volunteers, celebrity jurors and members of our local community, Cincinnati Canstruction has contributed 500,000 pounds of food to the Freestore Foodbank. ‘One Man Can’ be a catalyst for change.

My boys and I took a free tour from Artswave that started at the Weston Gallery/ Aronoff. You can also do your own self guided tour with a map available at most locations.

The next stop was the Cincinnati Downtown Public Library.

The entry pictured above used the most cans (16,396) and weighs over 5 tons! Each team does not know what the competition is entering which is why there were two similar themed entries.