Why is there a giant metal spider under this Vancouver bridge?

Turning scrap metal and household items into large, exquisite sculptures, popular Canadian street artist Junko Playtime encourages Vancouverites to face their fears.

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Pop artist Junko Playtime has installed a large metal chandelier under a high-traffic bridge on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.

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According to Playtime’s Instagram page, the eight-foot-diameter chandelier was recently installed overnight on the north bank below the bridge between North Grandview Highway and Broadway. The bridge carries vehicles and pedestrians, while passengers travel up on TransLink’s Expo Line SkyTrain and down the ravine through which the Millennium Line runs.

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Montreal’s Playtime has built a reputation over the past two years for installing a number of very large and faraway, futuristic insect-like sculptures and other structures made from junk and household items across Canada.

Playtime’s latest installation called “Phobia 2023 Time to face our fears” (the spider) comes a month after it erected two scrap metal creatures outside the Bentall Center at Burrard and Dunsmuir as part of the Vancouver Mural Festival’s winter art event. .

Last July, Playtime created a yellow facility called the Queen BX1000 that was built on vacant land next to the SkyTrain Skybridge that spans the Fraser River between Vancouver and Richmond. Standing over 20 feet tall and appearing to have part of a vehicle in its abdomen, the piece was demolished a month after it was installed.

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Playtime (a pseudonym) documents his work on his Instagram page, with those installations growing ever larger and more elaborate since his first post in December 2020.

They include two four-foot chameleons attached to a utility pole in Brampton, Ontario, a man in armor outside the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, and a horse-shaped creation on a bicycle bridge in Toronto.

Playtime’s work is highly variable in size and style, with the common theme being the use of waste to create public art in highly visible spaces near public transportation.

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