In celebration of Labatt’s Breweries of Canada 175th Anniversary, we were commissioned to create a sculpture using beer cans and bottle caps for the gala exhibition at Harbourfront Theatre.

Inspired by alarger-than-life dream for the future, Dreaming Big creates agesture of global interconnection. Our concept was a gathering of four interdependent figures, as metaphors for the four directions, in conversation with each other and the larger (lager) world.

As leads for the project, Simoni and Zaraimajin communicated with the representative, Kate Alexander, and negotiated the contract and budget. Researching Labatt’s Breweries, we evolved the concept and completed drawings referencing the process of brewing. We fabricated the sculpture by threading beer cans on a 30”x30”x7’ armature of copper pipe and copper tube. Using bottle caps, we fabricated a wheat motif on the plywood base.  One challenge was to navigate protection of the fragile beer cans. Our solution was to fill each can with foam insulation, and the day after we arrived in the studio, we found the foam had risen out of the tops of the cans, looking coincidentally like the head of freshly decanted beer. In less than 4 weeks between initial contact and delivery, we completed the project, and Big was completed and delivered a day ahead of time.

Building on public art installations that explore the notion of interdependence, DreamingBig will be installed permanently at the Labatt’s Breweries of Canada head office, Toronto.