An iconic piece of public art was taken down in Vancouver this weekend

After spending 6 years welcoming people to the area, Vancouver’s iconic Trans Am Totem was taken down by crews over the weekend. Created for the Vancouver Biennale, the piece became a hallmark of the Quebec Street route into the downtown core. Here’s a little more info.

The Trans Am Totem was created by Marcus Bowcott, a Vancouver-based artist. By stacking 5 used cars on top of one another, Bowcott hoped to highlight the realities of a ‘throwaway’ consumer culture. As a double-whammy, it also refers to the impacts of gas-powered cars on the planet.

Related Posts:
Cap off your summer with an open-air dinner at this Whistler Art Museum
You can be your very own horse lord at this giant BC Rocky Mountain estate for sale

Dismantling the 33-foot tall, 25,000 pound statue was no easy task. Crews spent the better part of the day using cranes and other machinery to get it down. Why was the statue removed, you may ask? Well, apparently it had suffered too much damage due to birds.

Which is kind of ironic, in our eyes. Here’s a public art piece highlighting throwaway culture getting reclaimed by nature, but apparently that’s too unsightly to be on display. According to the Vancouver Public Art Committee, the statue will be cleaned then reassembled in a more permanent location.

So, we’re accepting bets on where it goes next! Our guess is somewhere in the West End, but that’s a shot in the dark.