Exhibitions Archive 2005
Canstruction: One CAN Build a Solution to Hunger
November 11, 2005 – January 2, 2006
Canstruction® is a deliciously inventive charity committed to ending hunger by marshalling the efforts of the design and construction industry. This grassroots organization challenges architects, engineers, designers, contractors and students mentored by these professionals, to design and build colossal sculptures using canned food as their primary building block. Each year, in numerous nationwide competitions, hundreds of competing teams showcase their talents to create funny and fabulous can-based artworks, using the colorful food labels as their pallet. Their building blocks—tin cans--come in a variety of sizes from the smallest tuna to the industrial-size tomato can.
Copia is proud to host this year’s competition in the North Bay. The most exciting food drive ever created, Canstruction® puts a visual spotlight on hunger while helping to solve the problem--at the close of the exhibition, all of the food used in the sculptures will be donated to local food banks. This year, Canstruction® initiated a call to each of its local city competition organizers to channel a percentage of the canned goods raised as a result of their Canstruction® competitions to aid Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Copia encourages every visitor to bring with them one can of food to add to the larger Canstruction® donation.
Trademarked by the Society of Design Administration, working in tandem with the American Institute of Architects, the San Francisco Society of Design Administration Chapter, and other members of the design and construction industry.Media sponsor: Design for Living.
photo: Israel Valencia
Canstruction® is a deliciously inventive charity committed to ending hunger by marshalling the efforts of the design and construction industry. This grassroots organization challenges architects, engineers, designers, contractors and students mentored by these professionals, to design and build colossal sculptures using canned food as their primary building block. Each year, in numerous nationwide competitions, hundreds of competing teams showcase their talents to create funny and fabulous can-based artworks, using the colorful food labels as their pallet. Their building blocks—tin cans--come in a variety of sizes from the smallest tuna to the industrial-size tomato can.
Copia is proud to host this year’s competition in the North Bay. The most exciting food drive ever created, Canstruction® puts a visual spotlight on hunger while helping to solve the problem--at the close of the exhibition, all of the food used in the sculptures will be donated to local food banks. This year, Canstruction® initiated a call to each of its local city competition organizers to channel a percentage of the canned goods raised as a result of their Canstruction® competitions to aid Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Copia encourages every visitor to bring with them one can of food to add to the larger Canstruction® donation.
Trademarked by the Society of Design Administration, working in tandem with the American Institute of Architects, the San Francisco Society of Design Administration Chapter, and other members of the design and construction industry.Media sponsor: Design for Living.
Transplanting Culture: Hmong Gardeners in America
September 16, 2005 – January 2, 2006
The Hmong are an agrarian ethnic minority from the hill country in Laos. Persecuted and displaced in the aftermath of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, thousands of Hmong fled to Thailand and other countries. During the past 25 years 150,000 have made their way to the U.S., settling primarily in Minnesota, Wisconsin and California. Overcoming the extreme disruption of their rural way of life, the Hmong refugees are adapting to life in the U.S. while also retaining some of the foods and traditions of their former homeland.
In 2003, University of California Davis graduate student, Jan. L. Corlett, undertook a research project to collect and preserve specimens of the food and medicinal plants growing in Sacramento-area Hmong urban gardens. Hmong gardens are places for food production, but even more importantly, they are a means of passing on traditions from generation to generation. The U.C. Davis collection documents this cultural continuity, preserving and identifying the Laotian plant varieties that are taking root--along with these immigrants--in American soil.
Organized by Copia in cooperation with Jan Corlett, Ph.D. and Ellen A. Dean, Ph.D. Director and Curator of the UCD Center for Plant Diversity.Sponsored by: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and What Kids Can Do
The Hmong are an agrarian ethnic minority from the hill country in Laos. Persecuted and displaced in the aftermath of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, thousands of Hmong fled to Thailand and other countries. During the past 25 years 150,000 have made their way to the U.S., settling primarily in Minnesota, Wisconsin and California. Overcoming the extreme disruption of their rural way of life, the Hmong refugees are adapting to life in the U.S. while also retaining some of the foods and traditions of their former homeland.
In 2003, University of California Davis graduate student, Jan. L. Corlett, undertook a research project to collect and preserve specimens of the food and medicinal plants growing in Sacramento-area Hmong urban gardens. Hmong gardens are places for food production, but even more importantly, they are a means of passing on traditions from generation to generation. The U.C. Davis collection documents this cultural continuity, preserving and identifying the Laotian plant varieties that are taking root--along with these immigrants--in American soil.
Organized by Copia in cooperation with Jan Corlett, Ph.D. and Ellen A. Dean, Ph.D. Director and Curator of the UCD Center for Plant Diversity.Sponsored by: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and What Kids Can Do
My Fair Label
July 22, 2005 – December 12, 2005
Do you judge a book by its cover? Every day we all make decisions about which products to buy based in part on their appealing labels. This can be particularly true with products such as wine and olive oil, where there are hundreds to choose among from little-known producers. Often a label is how we decide—and smart companies know it. For that reason, a great deal of care goes into creative packaging. Words and image are artfully combined on labels to convey messages about quality, status, values, and the people behind the product, in addition to basic consumer information.
Copia is proud to present the winning labels from the Los Angeles County Fair’s 2005 wine and olive oil label design competitions, focusing attention on the best new work in the field. Judging this year covered seven categories including use of innovative design elements, original art or illustration, and timeless elegance, in addition to an overall Judge’s Choice category. Come see if you agree with their selections!
Everready Working Woman: Harriete Estel Berman’s Family of Applicances
July 8, 2005 – January 23, 2006
Modern conveniences! How can we resist them? Home appliances are combinations of function and beauty that lend distinction to our interiors. Twelve-speed settings, clock timers, accelerated brewing, ice crushing blades—we associate these innovative features with greater leisure in an age when free time is scarce.
With humor and satire, master metalsmith Harriete Estel Berman brings to our attention today’s over-emphasis on consumer goods with her carefully crafted small-scale domestic “appliances,” and accompanying “advertisements” that claim to make our busy lives easier. Berman deconstructs, cuts, folds and reassembles metal scraps into extraordinary art. Her work makes pointed commentary on issues surrounding our consuming identities, including the roles of women in our society, and the dreams we buy into with “satisfaction guaranteed.”
Organized by Copia in cooperation with the artist.
ICING ON THE CAKE II
February 11 – July 4, 2005
Icing on the Cake returns! COPIA’s biennial exhibition of extravagant confections showcases the creativity and consuming passion of five of America’s finest cake designers--whose work is delicious in every sense. Icing on the Cake features amazing food sculptures inspired by architecture, art, animation, pop culture and the creators’ fantastic imaginations.
Mike McCarey of Mike’s Amazing Cakes (WA) is joined by Condra Easley of Patisserie Angelica (CA), Beryl Ann Byrd of Just Fabulous Pastries (CA), Marina Sousa of Just Cake (CA) and Susan Morgan of Elegant Cheese Cakes (CA). Inspired by architecture, art, animation, pop culture and the artists’ own fantastic imaginations, their confectionary creations promise to delight and surprise you.
Organized for COPIA by Jan Kish, Le Petite Fleur, Worthington, OH.
Fertile Forms:
The Sculpture of Gustav and Ulla Kraitz
September 30, 2004 - May 30, 2005
For over 40 years, Swedish artists Gustav and Ulla Kraitz have crafted sculptures with ancient Japanese ceramic techniques. Whether organic or geometric, their works show beautifully in outdoor settings. The artists positioned the six sculpture groupings in this installation to harmonize with COPIA’s architecture, landscape and gardens.
Organized for COPIA by the artists and Goran Christenson, Malmo Konst Museum, Sweden.
got milk?
January 21, 2005 – May 30, 2005
Californians are muttering “GOT MILK?”—and one of the reasons is a fiendishly clever advertising campaign that is among the most successful, long-lived, and beloved in history. The phrase “Got Milk?” has become a part of the American vernacular, showing up in various parodies on bumper stickers, cartoons, T-shirts, sit-coms, and the internet as well as in the TV and print ads for which it was created. The brainchild of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, who created it for the California Milk Processors Board, the 1993 ad campaign hinged on one simple truth: there are times when you’ve just got to have milk! Depicting the horrors of milk deprivation, this marketing success focused California and then national attention on a food most of us never really think about—until we run out.
The exhibition is organized by COPIA from the archives of the California Milk Processors Board, with the cooperation of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. It presents the Got Milk? story through print ad images, creative story boards, licensed products, got Milk? rip offs and a video montage of humorous TV commercials. www.gotmilk.com
What the World Eats:
A Nutritional Family Portrait
January 14, 2005 - May 9, 2005
You can learn much about a culture by its diet. What the World Eats is a fascinating photo essay documenting what people around the globe consume each week. Internationally-known photojournalist Peter Menzel, in collaboration with writer Faith d’Aluisio, traveled to 24 countries to capture 30 different families in photos and words. From Greenland to Egypt to Guatemala to the U.S., the artists put each family’s weekly provisions in context with their environments. This exhibition is a sneak preview of the pair’s book of the same title, which will be published in Fall 2005 by Ten Speed Press.
Napa resident Peter Menzel is an award-winning photojournalist whose work has appeared in Life, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The New York Times Magazine, Time, and Stern. He was creator and principal photographer for the books Material World: A Global Family Portrait and Women in the Material World (Sierra Club Books). In addition to collaborating with Menzel on the latter, former TV news producer Faith D’Aluisio wrote Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects (Ten Speed Press, 1998), and Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species (The MIT Press, 2000).
Organized by COPIA in cooperation with the artists.
July 22, 2005 – December 12, 2005
Do you judge a book by its cover? Every day we all make decisions about which products to buy based in part on their appealing labels. This can be particularly true with products such as wine and olive oil, where there are hundreds to choose among from little-known producers. Often a label is how we decide—and smart companies know it. For that reason, a great deal of care goes into creative packaging. Words and image are artfully combined on labels to convey messages about quality, status, values, and the people behind the product, in addition to basic consumer information.
Copia is proud to present the winning labels from the Los Angeles County Fair’s 2005 wine and olive oil label design competitions, focusing attention on the best new work in the field. Judging this year covered seven categories including use of innovative design elements, original art or illustration, and timeless elegance, in addition to an overall Judge’s Choice category. Come see if you agree with their selections!
Everready Working Woman: Harriete Estel Berman’s Family of Applicances
Modern conveniences! How can we resist them? Home appliances are combinations of function and beauty that lend distinction to our interiors. Twelve-speed settings, clock timers, accelerated brewing, ice crushing blades—we associate these innovative features with greater leisure in an age when free time is scarce.
With humor and satire, master metalsmith Harriete Estel Berman brings to our attention today’s over-emphasis on consumer goods with her carefully crafted small-scale domestic “appliances,” and accompanying “advertisements” that claim to make our busy lives easier. Berman deconstructs, cuts, folds and reassembles metal scraps into extraordinary art. Her work makes pointed commentary on issues surrounding our consuming identities, including the roles of women in our society, and the dreams we buy into with “satisfaction guaranteed.”
Organized by Copia in cooperation with the artist.
ICING ON THE CAKE II
Icing on the Cake returns! COPIA’s biennial exhibition of extravagant confections showcases the creativity and consuming passion of five of America’s finest cake designers--whose work is delicious in every sense. Icing on the Cake features amazing food sculptures inspired by architecture, art, animation, pop culture and the creators’ fantastic imaginations.
Mike McCarey of Mike’s Amazing Cakes (WA) is joined by Condra Easley of Patisserie Angelica (CA), Beryl Ann Byrd of Just Fabulous Pastries (CA), Marina Sousa of Just Cake (CA) and Susan Morgan of Elegant Cheese Cakes (CA). Inspired by architecture, art, animation, pop culture and the artists’ own fantastic imaginations, their confectionary creations promise to delight and surprise you.
Organized for COPIA by Jan Kish, Le Petite Fleur, Worthington, OH.
Fertile Forms:
The Sculpture of Gustav and Ulla Kraitz
September 30, 2004 - May 30, 2005
For over 40 years, Swedish artists Gustav and Ulla Kraitz have crafted sculptures with ancient Japanese ceramic techniques. Whether organic or geometric, their works show beautifully in outdoor settings. The artists positioned the six sculpture groupings in this installation to harmonize with COPIA’s architecture, landscape and gardens.
Organized for COPIA by the artists and Goran Christenson, Malmo Konst Museum, Sweden.
got milk?
Californians are muttering “GOT MILK?”—and one of the reasons is a fiendishly clever advertising campaign that is among the most successful, long-lived, and beloved in history. The phrase “Got Milk?” has become a part of the American vernacular, showing up in various parodies on bumper stickers, cartoons, T-shirts, sit-coms, and the internet as well as in the TV and print ads for which it was created. The brainchild of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, who created it for the California Milk Processors Board, the 1993 ad campaign hinged on one simple truth: there are times when you’ve just got to have milk! Depicting the horrors of milk deprivation, this marketing success focused California and then national attention on a food most of us never really think about—until we run out.
The exhibition is organized by COPIA from the archives of the California Milk Processors Board, with the cooperation of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. It presents the Got Milk? story through print ad images, creative story boards, licensed products, got Milk? rip offs and a video montage of humorous TV commercials. www.gotmilk.com
What the World Eats:
A Nutritional Family Portrait
You can learn much about a culture by its diet. What the World Eats is a fascinating photo essay documenting what people around the globe consume each week. Internationally-known photojournalist Peter Menzel, in collaboration with writer Faith d’Aluisio, traveled to 24 countries to capture 30 different families in photos and words. From Greenland to Egypt to Guatemala to the U.S., the artists put each family’s weekly provisions in context with their environments. This exhibition is a sneak preview of the pair’s book of the same title, which will be published in Fall 2005 by Ten Speed Press.
Napa resident Peter Menzel is an award-winning photojournalist whose work has appeared in Life, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The New York Times Magazine, Time, and Stern. He was creator and principal photographer for the books Material World: A Global Family Portrait and Women in the Material World (Sierra Club Books). In addition to collaborating with Menzel on the latter, former TV news producer Faith D’Aluisio wrote Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects (Ten Speed Press, 1998), and Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species (The MIT Press, 2000).
Organized by COPIA in cooperation with the artists.
The Campbell Kids: A Souper Century
August 4, 2004 – February 6, 2005
The cherub-faced twins have served as advertising mascots for the Campbell Soup Company for a century. Originally the work of Philadelphia illustrator Grace Gebbie Drayton, the Campbell Kids have appeared in thousands of ads, commercials and promotional products. They have adapted to changing media and changing times—including losing some of their original pudginess. This exhibition from Campbell’s archives celebrates 100 years of the advertising icon while providing insights into the evolution of American culture.
Organized by COPIA with Campbell Soup Co., their archivist, Beth Bartle, and David Oates, senior licensing manager.
The cherub-faced twins have served as advertising mascots for the Campbell Soup Company for a century. Originally the work of Philadelphia illustrator Grace Gebbie Drayton, the Campbell Kids have appeared in thousands of ads, commercials and promotional products. They have adapted to changing media and changing times—including losing some of their original pudginess. This exhibition from Campbell’s archives celebrates 100 years of the advertising icon while providing insights into the evolution of American culture.
Organized by COPIA with Campbell Soup Co., their archivist, Beth Bartle, and David Oates, senior licensing manager.
