Arts on the Ave/

Vancouver Biennale/

The places

Arts on the Ave Edmonton Society is a non-profit, charitable arts-driven organization that celebrates the human spirit through the arts while engaging others to build community, inspire and be inspired, across the globe.

Vancouver Biennale is a non-profit charitable organization that exhibits great art in public space, as a catalyst for learning, community engagement, and social action.

The Places is a community based, multi-partner initiative designed to raise the profile and livability of Edmonton's Downtown and other neighbourhoods through the placement of publicly and privately funded works of art and design.

“The sculptures in Love Your Bean break the boundaries that exist between objects and humans. They compel one to touch them, crossing borders when you allow yourself to be led by your senses.” – Cosimo Cavallaro

According to Cosimo Cavallaro, the bean is the truest shape to create, a shape that occurs naturally through process. Unlike a perfect circle that can be traced, a bean is an organic shape, one that cannot be easily duplicated and one that changes with each person that creates it. The beans are whimsical, joyful, interactive, and a little bit unsettling as they seduce and dwarf their viewers by their sweetness and smooth form. “Love your bean” was a mantra that Cavallaro told himself while he worked on the highly polished fibreglass resin of the sculpture, inspiring a deeper focus on the nature of love, shape and colour.

About Cosimo Cavallaro: Cosimo Cavallaro is an artist and filmmaker. He was born in Montreal in 1961 to Italian immigrants and grew up in both Canada and Italy. He began his artistic practice as a sculptor in Montreal in the early 1980s, had a successful film career, became internationally renowned for his use of food in installation art as a symbol of desire and excess, and is now based in the United States – where he most recently built a cheese wall along the Mexico border.

Collaborating partner,

The Places Art & Design in Public Places.

Thank you Community Partners:

Alberta Foundation for the Arts | Avatex | Avenue Initiative Revitalization | Canadian National Railway | City of Edmonton Edmonton Arts Council | Edmonton Community Development Company | Edmonton Community Foundation