Show: THE POP CAN POLL is an experiment in art and democracy...

For this purpose, I have gathered 1,000 crushed aluminum cans off the streels of Toronto, washed them and glued a piece of paper with the address of Parliament Hill to one side. The real art of the project began in June when I started canvasssing the hoi polloi to write a quick, from the gut, personal message to the Prime Minister or any other Member of Parliament.

The huge mass of diverse opinions will be displayed at Lennox Contemporary, 12 OSSINGTON AVENUE, FROM AUGUST 9TH UNTIL AUGUST 26TH. Additional blank cans will be made available throughout the duration of the exhibition so that viewers who attend will be able to participate.

On August 20th, the final phase of the project will begin. A crush of over 1,000 opinionated cans will be dumped into several mailboxes. From there, Canada Post will short, ship and distribute the straw poll to the Prime Minister and the other Members of Parliament. God only knows what our Parliamentarians will do with the letters once they have recieved them.

The Pop Can Poll is inspired by a couple of things. I once heard that the officials in Ottawa who deal with mail from the public are most interested in spontaneous letters, so I thought I would give them what they wanted. The other inspitation was classical Athenian democracy where voting was done by writing the candidates name on a pottery shard and casting it into a large vessel. Crushed pop cans seem like the modern-day equivalent to pottery shards, the mailbox - a large vessel - is the modern-day equivalent to the ballot box.