A one-day festival Canalology is aiming to give visitors a very different view of Tottenham’s sometimes forgotten waterways.

A pedal powered candyfloss maker, cloud deckchairs, portable foxes and an elaborate home for birds are just some of the surprising objects that have been created to celebrate the area’s canals.

The free day of art will see public spaces from Markfield Park to Stonebridge Lock filled with sculpture, drawing, digital animation, performance art, installation and architecture alongside a programme of storytelling, talks and workshops.

The unique celebration is the work of 16 artists who were challenged to create films, drawings and installations to map the network of waterways, exploring them as passageways or as barriers in the landscape of the city and delving into their hidden histories.

The range of art will include a hand-drawn map of the canals in Tottenham by artist Mary Yacoob. Nomadic architecture workshop AtelierFraSe will pursue an interest in the Lea Canalside as a home for wildlife and create ’shelters’ – two wooden structures appearing for one day only and aiming to act as a home for birds. These tall, open-frame architectural installations will be built partly with reclaimed and found wood from the area.

Artist Fiona Long will present Sublime Canalgae Floss in which visitors will be served delicious yet sludgy green coloured candyfloss, resembling canal algae.

The project has been led by POST Artists, a network for artists making site-specific work, with Grants for the Arts funding from Arts Council England.

Samantha Penn, POST chairperson who is also one of the artists exhibiting says: “We aim to find out and present fascinating things about Tottenham; to show this part of the capital in new and different ways in the understanding that, while art can temporarily alter the landscape in surprising and magical ways, the character of the canals in Tottenham is a true one-off.”

Artists taking part are: AtelierFraSe (Francesco Gorni and Serena Montesissa), Gwen Bajon, James Capper, Mary Yacoob, Olga Koroleva, Fiona Long, Rebecca Leach, Ilka Leukefeld, Samantha Penn, Jenny Rolfe Herbert, Natasha Vicars, Helena Wee and Pippa Koszerek working in collaboration with Marco Cali and Aliki Kylika as the Unasked-for Public Art Agency.

The free exhibition takes place on Saturday, May 3, 12 noon to 5pm in a route along the canal from Markfield Park, N15 to Stonebridge Lock, N17, next to Tottenham Marshes.

The participating artists have been blogging about the works at www.postartists.com/canalology