''Trans Am Totem'' was a public art installation in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, created by sculptor Marcus Bowcott. Part of the Vancouver Biennale, the piece was unveiled in April 2015. Located at the intersection of Quebec Street and Milross Avenue, near

False Creek False Creek (french: Faux ruisseau) is a short narrow inlet in the heart of Vancouver, separating the Downtown and West End neighbourhoods from the rest of the city. It is one of the four main bodies of water bordering Vancouver, along with ...

, east of Vancouver's

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

area, the sculpture incorporated stacked cars on top of a base made from a tree trunk. It stood high and weighed . It was dismantled on August 15, 2021, to be restored and reinstalled in a new location by the summer of 2022.

Background

Bowcott's fascination with crumbling cars started when working on

tow boat A pusher, pusher craft, pusher boat, pusher tug, or towboat, is a boat designed for pushing barges or car floats. In the United States, the industries that use these vessels refer to them as towboats. These vessels are characterized by a squar ...

s on the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

in the 1980s. Farmers used cars as

breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island Breakwater Island () is a small island in the Palme ...

s to stop the river banks from eroding, leaving the cars in various states of ruin. Bowcott attempted to record his impressions of the decayed vehicles in paintings, but was dissatisfied with the results. After teaching at

Capilano University Capilano University (CapU) is a teaching-focused public university based in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, located on the slopes of the North Shore Mountains, with programming that also serves the Sea-to-Sky Corridor and the Sunshin ...

for 22 years, Bowcott started working on the Trans Am Totem project for the 2014–2016 Vancouver Biennale. Construction of the stack of automobiles took two years, with the assistance of Bowcott's partner Helene Aspinall and structural engineer Eric Karsh. The Vancouver Biennale supplied 10,000 CAD of the construction and installation costs; the remainder were put up by the artist. After installing the sculpture, Bowcott launched a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

campaign that recouped 6,500 CAD of the installation costs. Bowcott has stated that the piece is a "sculptural response" to the urban site. It is as much a "celebration" of our mobility and technology as it is a critique of "throwaway consumer culture".

Materials

The sculpture incorporates five vehicles atop a wood base, made from a single tree. The vehicles are (from top to bottom) a

Pontiac Trans Am The Pontiac Firebird is an American automobile that was built and produced by Pontiac from the 1967 to 2002 model years. Designed as a pony car to compete with the Ford Mustang, it was introduced on February 23, 1967, five months after GM's Ch ...

, a

BMW 7 Series (E38) The BMW Generation E38 is the third generation of the BMW 7 Series luxury cars and was produced from 1994 until 2001. The E38 replaced the E32 7 Series and was produced with petrol and turbo-diesel straight-six and V8 engines, along with a petrol ...

, a fifth generation Honda Civic sedan, a Volkswagen Golf Mk1 Cabriolet, and a shortened

Mercedes-Benz W201 The Mercedes-Benz W201 was the internal designation for the Mercedes 190 series sedans, a range of front-engine, rear drive, five passenger, four-door sedans manufactured over a single generation, from 1982 to 1993 as the company's first compac ...

with the front grille of a

Volkswagen Golf Mk3 The Volkswagen Golf Mk3 is a medium-sized compact family car. The third generation of the Volkswagen Golf and the successor to the Volkswagen Golf Mk2, which was produced by Volkswagen from August 1991 (for the 1992 model year) to 2002 (for Cab ...

. The vehicles, donated by a local

scrapyard A wrecking yard (Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian English), scrapyard (Irish, British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and ...

, had their engines, transmissions and drivetrains removed to reduce their weight. A solar-powered electrical system was installed to power the vehicles' headlights and taillights. The cars are fixed to a steel column which rises through the centre of the sculpture. Bowcott also repainted the vehicles. The wooden base which supports the cars is from the stump of an old-growth cedar tree, which was transported from southern

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...

. The tree was separated into halves along its length to incorporate the central steel column.

References

External links

Trans Am Totem
on the artist's website * {{Portal bar, Cars, Canada, Visual arts 2015 establishments in British Columbia 2015 sculptures Car culture Outdoor sculptures in Vancouver Wooden sculptures in Canada

Background

Materials

See also

References

External links