A new sculpture set to be unveiled Monday night in Winnipeg is already raising eyebrows around town, as locals try to figure out what it's supposed to represent.

Several passers-by at the corner of Broadway and Edmonton Street offered their own suggestions to CTV Winnipeg on Sunday, with such guesses as a bee's nest, an egg, a bell or "something cultural, maybe?"

The sculpture is called "Heaven Between," and it's cone-like shape resembles a space capsule, with a hollow bottom and leaf-shaped cutouts in the dome. It appears large enough to cover a SmartCar, and is suspended on wires roughly two metres above the sidewalk.

Artist Bill Pechet says the sculpture is meant to evoke the two domes of the nearby train station and the Manitoba Legislative Building. "It's a dome between at least two domes," he told CTV Winnipeg. He added that the cutouts are shaped like elm leaves, to represent the trees that were planted along Broadway a century ago. The dome also features 24 lights around the inside rim, at the bottom.

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman will switch on the lights for the first time at an unveiling ceremony for the project on Monday night.

"It's going to glow like a candle," Pechet said. "I'm hoping that sort of like a light that brings moths to a flame, that in the evening people will emanate here and spend time looking at the light."

One woman who lives nearby said she appreciates any kind of boost to the city's cultural scene.

But another man who was passing by expressed doubts about the draw of the sculpture's lights. "I' don't know how much people are going to just come and sit around a display like that," he said.

With files from CTV Winnipeg