Art is food for the soul.
There are different ways you can feel connected to art, if you feel so inclined, of course.
There’s no pre-requisite for how you’re supposed to react or indeed feel when you experience a piece of art. That’s if you feel anything at all. And there are levels of immersion, those that are literal and those that are figurative. And, of course, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Artist, Bobby Baker, originally created An Edible Family in a Mobile Home, in a pre-fab house in Tower Hamlets, East London, in 1976 at the age of 25. A former student at St Martin’s, the prefab was provided under the Acme foundation, founded in 1972 to provide affordable spaces to artists to live and work in..
Once she had her prefab, Bobby knew she would make a life-size family out of cake and open it to the public. Why? She shared with me she didn’t know when making the decision. It was something she had to do. No stranger to confectionary creation (alliteration, it’s great), Bobby was already doing the Meringue Ladies World Tour; a troupe of hand-piped meringues I performed with (isn’t it wonderful).
So far, so on brand then.
But what I found most interesting was that the five figures she created, she didn’t realise she was recreating her family until the work was done.
As Bobby and I chatted, we stood next to ‘Father’, sat in his armchair, watching Charlie Drake on television. Bobby explained that her father very sadly drowned at 15. I understand more.
The sculpture, indeed made of cake, contains the most beautiful little birds inside. Why, I asked. Bobby laughs and said she didn’t know. Although her father did love birds. I tell her I have three little birds tattooed on my foot although I wasn’t sure why I chose birds either. I just decided that was what I was doing that afternoon (there was a wider context of a lost father in terms of what and where I was, that said…).
The point is we don’t always know in the conscious why we may do something although the subconscious is firmly at work.
We look at the baby in the cot and Bobby tells me she also came to realise that was her, one of her earliest memories being in a cot just like the one we see, tearing and peeling away at the wallpaper she could reach through the bars.
The house, is adorned and papered floor to ceiling with Jackie magazine clippings and newspaper clippings dated to mid-70s. The original magazines sourced from E-bay, the newspapers replicas – all dated to the mid-70s. Scary, but somehow reassuring to note how cyclical news is. The language might change, but society’s occurrences remain largely the same.
I read that when Bobby first created the work (and at this point, I mean in every sense), she wanted visitors to truly engage with the work quite literally by eating it. Consumerism in its purest form! She rejected the elitism in the world of art, and wanted visitors to truly be a part of it.
Standing inside this restaged work, some 50 years later (originally restaged in 2023 at Tate Britain), is quite the experience. I’m inside the little kitchen. Woman’s Hour from the era plays out from the original radio, and I’m reading some of the headines of the day, looking at the little cooker. From inside I can see ‘Mother’ just beyond the door, her natural place being where I stand, would there be room in this little hive of industrial domesticity.
But let’s talk about the cake. For this staging, this is very much a local affair. The cake is baked by Long Boi’s Bakehouse, a neighbourhood bakery situated between Levenshulme and Burnage and being a savoury girl over sweet, I say this without prejudice that it was absolutely delicious. So sweet-toothers run, don’t walk. I personally sampled Father and Baby.
Looking at Bobby’s wider work including this, and what she is driven by, she exposes the ‘undervalued and stigmatised aspects of women’s daily lives’, exploring feminist themes and framing the women’s movement and changes of agenda. I encourage you to read and discover more of Bobby’s work over the years – Bobby Baker | Daily Life Ltd.
This of course segues into the wider exhibition , Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990.
The landmark exhibition features
over 90 women artists and collectives whose ideas helped fuel the women’s liberation movement during a period of significant economic and political change
Women in Revolt! is impressive and extensive in terms of the varying art forms and contributing artists, and explores six main themes: maternal and domestic experiences, anti-racist and LGBTQ+ activism, Greenham Common and the peace movement, and punk and independent music.
Those local to Manchester will no doubt be aware of Gina Birch’s face silently screaming at them from marketing materials for the exhibition, and indeed this is certainly one of the most striking pieces.
Gina Birch’s ‘3 Minute Scream’ (1977), the length of a Super 8 film cartridge, is just that. It’s the gutteral, unadulterated reaction to a realisation that society expectations could lead her into marriage, motherhood and a life of domesticity.
Meanwhile, mancs, honorary mancs and mancophiles will also be interested in the piece, Ludus Concert with Meat Dress, Hacienda – Manchester (1982), playing out in the corner. We see Linder performing at the Hacienda, wearing a dress made of meat (step aside Lady Gaga, Manchester got there first) and, inspired by Bucks Fizz, mid performance, the female singers in Ludus whipped their skirts off, Linder herself revealing a strap on sex toy – a protest at the meat only offerings (Linder being a vegetarian) and pornographic films played out at club nights.
Love.
But there is so much more and whilst visually I have captured some of the pieces on show, I invite you to see for yourself. Whilst lucky to receive a curated tour the day before opening, I intend to return and spend some quiet time (Birch’s piece aside) absorbing the important messages, and feeling what I feel, from these important women artists whose contributions helped us to where we are now and motivate us to continue to push further for where we want to be.
Plus I want some more of Bobby’s cake before you all get to it.
An Edible Family in a Mobile Home – Bobby Baker.
Part of the Women in Revolt! at Whitworth Art Galler,y, Manchester. Now open until 1 June 2025.
Read more: Bobby Baker’s An Edible Family in a Mobile Home – Women in Revolt! at Whitworth Art Gallery
honorary manc 
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