You can create art with pens, pencils, or paint. Groups of and made their artworks using thousands of cans of food. Those cans are then given away to New Yorkers in need. This charity contest, called Canstruction, takes place every November in New York City. And News-O-Matic helped judge the exhibition in 2025!
There were 23 sculptures on display at Brookfield Place in Manhattan. On November 3, judges picked the winners of the Canstruction competition. Russell Kahn (the News-O-Matic editor) helped choose a Minecraft design (named “ChickCAN Jockey”) as an Honorable Mention. Builders from Severud Associates built the winning from 1,752 cans of tuna, chicken, and salmon. As the group said, “It’s time to BLOCK out hunger!”
The other Honorable Mention award went to “To Bean or Not to Bean” by Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. That two-sided sculpture shows the masks of comedy and drama, which the builders said represent “joy and struggle — both on stage and in life.” The design was made from 3,456 cans of tuna to feed 864 New Yorkers.
A clever dinosaur design won the award for Structural . It shows the huge (and life-sized) head of a triceratops with its three horns. DeSimone Consulting Engineering built that sculpture, called “TRYceraSTOPS Hunger,” using 5,316 cans of tuna and beans. The team said it hoped to help make hunger “go the way of the dinosaurs.”
Gensler won the Best Original Design. The architecture company’s sculpture, “Five Alarm Fight Against Hunger,” shows a fire truck from the New York Fire Department. It had a whopping 7,200 cans of food — enough to feed 5,188 people.
Yet that wasn’t the biggest sculpture of the event. Another group built a gigantic goldfish using 10,764 cans of beans and tuna. “Hooked on Helping” won the Most Cans prize and will feed 7,570 New Yorkers.
Other sculptures showed different designs. Some showed areas of New York City, such as a subway station (which won “Best Use of Labels.”) There were animals, including capybaras, a rabbit, and a rat with pizza. Two sculptures represented the 2026 World Cup. And there were popular characters, such as Stich, Wall-E, and Superman.
This year marked the 33rd annual Canstruction in New York City. Jennifer Greene, an organizer of the event, said she enjoys the groups’ designs. As Green explained, “Every year it amazes me what they come up with!”
The exhibit included about 70,000 total cans of food. After the show closes on November 10, the cans will go to charity. City Harvest delivers them to thousands of families — just in time for Thanksgiving!
By Russell Kahn (Russ)
Updated November 6, 2025, 5:00 P.M. (ET)
