When Bobby Baker’s sculptural work An Edible Family in a Mobile Home was installed nearly 50 years ago, art lovers were invited to not only touch her work but eat it. Now, the seminal work by the intersectional feminist is coming back – except this time, there’s going to be a vegan option.
From 8 November, Tate Britain will present a restaging of Baker’s radical installation.
Originally staged in 1976, a replica of Baker’s prefabricated east London house will be sited on the South Lawn outside Tate Britain. It will contain five lifesize sculptures of family members made from cake, biscuits and meringue, which will be steadily eaten by the public.
The work outside Tate Britain will replicate the original, but with several elements updated by Baker. Four of the five figures will be made of garibaldi biscuits, meringue and various flavours of cake – including a vegan option – baked by the London bakery Lily Vanilli. Baker has also developed specialist icing to decorate the walls of the house.
Visitors will be invited into the house to sample the edible sculptures and talk to hosts who have been trained by Baker.
The installation, funded by the national lottery through Arts Council England, accompanies Tate Britain’s autumn exhibition exploring art and activism in the 1970s and 80s, Women in Revolt!, which opens the same day. It features more than 100 female artists and celebrates their often unsung contribution to British culture; and it will include photographs of Baker’s original sculptural installation from 1976.
The 1976 installation, which was exhibited over the course of a week in Baker’s prefab Acme house in Stepney, east London, invited visitors to eat pieces of her cake “family” while she served cups of tea, performing the role of polite female host.
The family members occupied various rooms in Baker’s home, whose walls were plastered in newspaper cuttings and decorated with icing, scenting the air with sugar.
She said she created the original work at the age of 25 because she was “disillusioned with the art world”, which she found elitist and sexist. Soon, she discovered that performance art was where she was welcomed and free to experiment.
“I wanted to make work for people in and around their environments,” she said. “I’d moved into an Acme Studios prefab on an estate occupied largely by families with young children. I wanted to make work that related to their lives, and I realised subsequently that the show was also a reflection on my own family life as a child.”
The artist said society had inevitably evolved in the time since she made An Edible Family in a Mobile Home, but some problems still remained.
“The whole of my life’s work stems from an early feeling of injustice, lack of opportunity and the undervaluing of care work. From an early age I saw my mother’s role was undervalued, but also that men could become trapped.
“Society still doesn’t adequately support families, parents, or domestic labour and yet work and childcare are fundamental to survival and humanity. The pandemic also exposed the many inequalities that still exist in society today, and their detrimental impact on family life.”
After its run at Tate Britain, the installation will tour the UK, ending with a final presentation in collaboration with Idle Women, a Lancashire-based art and social justice collaboration that creates transformative spaces with women.
Edible Family is open to the public at Tate Britain from 8 November-3 December 2023 and from 8 March-7 April 2024.
