Drawing for Food puts architectural drawings up for auction to raise awareness about food insecurity in Toronto

A new initiative called Drawing for Food, has recently collected donated architectural drawings and illustrations that will be put up for auction later in November to raise awareness and funds for food insecurity in Toronto.

All proceeds from the sales of the donated drawings and illustrations will be donated to Toronto Food not Bombs to support their food outreach program. For the last few years, Toronto Food not Bombs has been gathering every Sunday at Toronto’s Allan Gardens Park to serve bags of groceries and meals to those affected by poverty, homelessness, or food scarcity.

The initiative uses a model tested by the UK-based organization “Architecture for Change,” which solicits drawings from designers and architects for auction in support of social causes.

Homelessness in Toronto has become more visible since the pandemic, but Drawing for Food notes that there is a lot of invisible homelessness and food precarity. While several architecture studio briefs have taken on themes such as affordable housing, this project aims to leverage the architecture community’s work to support vulnerable members more directly.

Another aim of this project is to explore different ways that architectural drawings “can be used for public good.”

“Realizing spatial projects of any scale typically relies on a financial backer: an owner, a client, an entity with a commercial interest, etc. The interests of the moneyed participant drive, or at least influence, the interests of the spatial project,” said Drawing for Food.

“But the instrument of drawing, we argue, is entirely ours. It belongs to us, and as designers, we can decide what and how we draw, who we draw for, and who benefits from our work.”

The upcoming auction will include drawings donated by Peter Maerkli (Switzerland), Nathalie Du Pasquier (Italy), Salazar Sequero Medina (Spain/USA), Ultramoderne (USA), Edgar Rodriquez (Mexico/USA), Drawing Architecture Studio (China) and more.

Co-organizers Davidson Rafailidis, Office of Adrian Phiffer and Eira Roberts have also donated drawings.

The auction website went live as a gallery earlier this month. Bidding will open on November 24 and will end on December 1, 2023.

For more information, click here.

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