An Edible Family in a Mobile Home is at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester as part of the tour of Women in Revolt!  7 March – 20 April 2025  

Opening hours at the Whitworth:

Mon & Tue: Closed
Wed: 10.30am – 3.30pm
Thu: 2.30pm – 7.30pm

Fri: 10.30am – 3.30pm
Sat: 10.30am – 3.30pm
Sun: 10.30am – 3.30pm

Originally staged in her Acme prefabricated house in Stepney, East London, in 1976, the remake of the sculptural installation, An Edible Family in a Mobile Home, accompanies the touring exhibition Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990 at Tate Britain and the Whitworth. This major recreated artwork contains five life-size sculptures of family members made from cake, biscuits and meringues, which will be steadily eaten by the public. 

An Edible Family in a Mobile Home had not been seen for almost 50 years until the first restaging of a replica in 2023 outside Tate Britain, with updated elements by the artist. The 1976 installation was presented in Baker’s actual prefabricated mobile home – one of a handful of prefabs that arts organisation Acme were providing for artists as live/work spaces.

Alongside the refurbished dressmaker’s dummy mother, the figures of a daughter, son, husband, and baby are made out of garibaldi biscuits, meringue, and various flavours of cake (including a vegan option). The house is papered floor-to-ceiling in newspaper pages and magazine clippings dated to the mid-seventies adorned with icing decorations. In the bathroom, appropriately dated music from the era emanates from a vintage radio and in the sitting room the father watches 1970s comedy on TV.

Baker originally staged her installation aged 25 over the course of a week. Visitors ate pieces of her cake ‘family’ and Baker served cups of tea, performing the role of polite female host. In the living room, a father made of fruit cake was slumped in an armchair surrounded by tabloid newspapers; in the bath, a teenage son made of garibaldi biscuits lay in chocolate cake bathwater against a background of comics; and in the kitchen, a mother constructed from a dressmaker’s mannequin with a teapot for a head offered a constant supply of fairy cakes, sandwiches and fruit from compartments in her hollow abdomen. Baker baked, sculpted and decorated each of these family members herself over the course of a month. 

At Tate Britain, the cakes were baked by Lili Vanilli and meringues were supplied by Cotswold Meringue Company, while  at the Whitworth, they will be baked by Manchester’s women-owned and women-run Long Boi's Bakehouse. Assembled by Baker and her team, visitors are invited into the house to sample the edible sculptures and talk to the ‘hosts’. The hosts, specially trained by Baker, included students from Chelsea College of Art and young women recruited through the race and class inclusion charity You Make It at Tate Britain and students from the University of Manchester at the Whitworth. 

Following a period of research with the UCL’s Institute for Making, Baker used a contemporary icing to decorate the walls of the house, while the building’s structure was slightly adapted to improve accessibility. 

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Additional support has been secured from Acme, and People's Postcode Lottery.

Credits

Artistic Director: Bobby Baker

Production Designer: Miranda Melville

Technical Director: Steve Wald


Producers: Caroline Smith, Rebecca Gremmo in London and Bren O'Callaghan in Manchester

Development: Ilana Mitchell, Idle Women

House Fabrication: Miraculous Engineering

Materials Development: Ellie Doney

Cake: Lily Vanilli in London and Long Boi's Bakehouse in Manchester

Meringues: Cotswold Handmade Meringues in London and Long Boi's Bakehouse in Manchester 

Makers: Katy Christianson, Millie Holland, Terri Mercieca, Maja Quille,  

Host Producers: Daisy Gould in London and Rebekka Anstem in Manchester

Artist Liaison: Gemma Lloyd

Production Office: Melissa Bradshaw, Kemi Williams, Rose Sharp

Evaluation: Dora Whittuck

With special thanks to Rachel Fleming-Mulford and Linsey Young,

without whose early support and enthusiasm this re-staging would not have been possible. Thanks also to Poppy Bowers, Senior Curator, Olivia Heron, Curator, and all the staff at the Whitworth.

See full list of credits and supporters here.

Bobby Baker sculpture

Ovalhouse, London

Dressed in an old ballgown of her mother’s, a maid’s cap, and elaborate make up, Bobby Baker carved up a life-size baby made from cake presented upon a meat platter. Despite being presented at Ovalhouse, which had a reputation for showcasing radical art, people expressed horror and shock at the act, which Baker herself had perceived as an appropriate and interesting image associated with the festival of Christmas.

Bobby Baker sculpture

Artist’s sitting room, Anerley, London

In an attempt to strike a balance between Baseball Boot Cake (1972) not being eaten and Cake Christmas Dinner (1972) being overwhelmed by drunken students, Bobby Baker hosted a tea party to display a selection of cakes, meringues and jellies that included a seated nude woman as its centrepiece. Not wanting to ‘spoil’ the display guests refrained from taking part, highlighting the challenges of overcoming behavioural codes and habits.

Bobby Baker sculpture

St Martin’s School of Art, London

An entire life-size Christmas dinner made from cake including turkey, leg of ham, and all the trimmings. Made for the art school’s Christmas party, the ‘spread’ was soon demolished by guests in a setting that Bobby Baker hoped would overcome the problem of wasting food.

Bobby Baker performance

2 April 1974
St Martin’s School of Art, London

Framed as a commentary on the pros and cons of sentimentality, Sweet and Sour was Bobby Baker’s earliest use of the cookery demonstration format as a framework for a performance. It began with 50 boxed marzipan roses that were sent out to people as invitations. At the performance proper, Baker worked with a mobile kitchen to create sweet and sour pork balls and crystallised roses, which she served to her audience with glasses of rosé to a soundtrack that included a voiceover of poet George R Sim’s ‘Billy’s Dead and Gone to Glory’.

Bobby Baker sculpture and performance

New Contemporaries, Camden Arts Centre, London

Taking its cue from a Sufi proverb and made in tribute to Virginia Woolf, this edible artwork took the form of a seated life-size figure assembled from 1080 buns decorated with marzipan. It was installed for the opening of the exhibition New Contemporaries, where Bobby Baker served up slices to visitors. As the buns were dismantled it gradually revealed bookshelves and ornaments.

Bobby Baker sculpture

ICA, London

For this work Bobby Baker decorated a homemade Christmas tree at the ICA with hot miniature Christmas puddings. It was created on the occasion of the Performance Art Collective’s Christmas party whose guests were encouraged to help themselves to a ‘bauble’. The Performance Art Collective was headed by the film director and screenwriter Sally Potter and hosted by the late Ted Little, who was Director of the ICA between 1974 and 1977. Members included Rose English, Anne Bean, Judith H. Katz, and Jacky Lansley.

Bobby Baker installation

13 Conder Street, Stepney, London

For this project, Bobby Baker transformed the Acme Housing Association prefab that she was living in into a week-long sculptural installation that housed an edible family of five: mother, father, teenage daughter, son, and baby. 

Assembled from cake and adorned with icing, biscuits and other baked goods, the family members could be encountered in rooms throughout the house: the baby asleep in her cot, the son in the bath, the teenage daughter listening to the radio in her parents’ bedroom, the father slumped in an armchair in front of the television. The mother was the only mobile member of the family who moved throughout the house but was more often found in the kitchen, where visitors could enjoy a cup of tea from her head, or other soft drinks, and have fresh snacks from compartments in her abdomen. Against a backdrop of walls and surfaces covered in newsprint and magazines, and decorated with icing sugar, Baker performed as hostess. She offered food and encouraged visitors to consume, and thereby dismantle, the family.   

Bobby Baker: ‘For the first time I decided to dispense with the problem of deciding what to wear…I would always adopt a more neutral garb, in the form of a woman’s overall. I liked the fact that it was neutral and yet deeply complex in the ways in which it could be read. Also, it was my conscious female riposte to Joseph Beuys’ macho fishing waistcoat and hat.’ 

Funded by Arts Council England

Daily Life Ltd. project

25 July 2015
Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, London

13 October 2016
William Morris Gallery, London

In their role as custodians of our heritage and culture, museums and galleries categorise, define, and label their contents. Roving Diagnostic Unit critiqued modern psychiatric diagnosis, which seeks to do the same things with ‘patients’; people experiencing mental distress. In doing so, the project exposed some of the absurdities of the mental health system, while highlighting the strengths and talents of people who have been 'diagnosed'. 

Led by ‘Dr Bobby’ (Bobby Baker), the Roving Diagnostic Unit had two iterations. The first was at Tower Hamlets Cemetary Park commissioned for Shuffle Festival in 2015. The second was a year later, at William Morris Gallery and park. For both, Baker invited contributions from other artists and fellow Experts by Experience of the mental health system.

For Shuffle Festival, participants were invited by Baker to consider the predicaments of the everyday objects in the park – did the litter-bin suffer hoarding symptoms? Perhaps the pond was delusional? The bench by the path seemed uneasy: social anxiety disorder? The event featured contributions by writer-performer-artist sean burn, artist Simon Raven, and singer-songwriter Dylan Tighe.

At the William Morris Gallery, pertinent questions were again asked in order to ‘diagnose’ the Gallery and its surrounding park, with artists commissioned to create participatory adventures for the public. Questions asked included, does the gift shop display hoarding symptoms? Perhaps the textile collection has family problems: generalised anxiety disorders? Are the toilets experiencing grandiose delusions? The artists involved alongside Baker were Rhiannon Armstrong, Sara Haq, Marie Louise Plum, Kate Rolison, Selina Thompson, whatsthebigmistry; singer-songwriter Dylan Tighe; and writer-performer-artist sean burn. 

By exploring the psychiatric diagnostic framework through an artistic and witty lens, Roving Diagnostic Framework questioned the assumption that our state of mind can be defined by an ‘expert’ and that people can be conveniently labelled as disordered. 

The Roving Diagnostic Unit at the William Morris Gallery was supported by Wellcome, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and London Borough of Waltham Forest.

Daily Life Ltd. project

21 January – 23 March 2016
The Grove, Stratford High Street, London

Referencing Groucho Marx’s words ‘Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.’, Letting in the Light showcased the work of 35 artists with personal experience of mental distress from across the UK. The works were selected by a panel including Bobby Baker, artist Sara Haq and curators from Bethlem Gallery and Outside In, Pallant House. Displayed on freestanding lightboxes throughout the dark winter months, the works illuminated Stratford High Street in east London and encouraged people to re-consider their preconceptions about mental health.

The exhibition included artworks by Anna Berry, Anthony Woods-McLean, Chris Gray, Daniel Reagan, Dolly Sen, George Harding, Graeme Newton, Greenwoodflett, Greg Bromley, Helen Parker, Jackie Bennet, Jan Arden, Jane McCormick, Jasmine Surreal, John Jennings, Julia M Oak, Kate Rolison, Kim Feld, Kristina Veasey, Lea Cummings, Lesley Greening Lassoff, Liz Atkin, Manuela Hubner, Martin Phillimore, Nuala Hamilton, Phil Baird, Sara Rivers, Stephanie Bates, Sue Morgan, Sue Trickey, Terence Wilde, Tess Springhall, Tilley Milburn, Yvonne Mary Parker

Daily Life Ltd. project

7 & 8 May 2015
Various venues

The Expert View was a two-day micro-festival held across various sites in east London to explore ‘expertise’ in arts and mental health, from the perspectives of all involved. It was organised in partnership with Bromley By Bow Centre and Friends of East End Loonies (F.E.E.L). 

The festival included a performance double bill with Selina Thompson and Laura Jane Dean at Arts 2, Queen Mary University London, and a symposium at the Bromley By Bow Centre, hosted by Bobby Baker. The symposium investigated ‘expertise’, the value of lived experience, and ways of evaluating collaborative work. Contributions came from leading academics, artists and practitioners working at the cutting edge of arts and mental health practice. These included Jacqui Dillon, Hearing Voices Network; Dr Caoimhe McAvinchey, Queen Mary University London; Marc Steene, Outside In; Beth Elliott, Bethlem Gallery; Dr Dave Harper, University of East London; and Lucy Wells, Bromley by Bow Centre. Performances and interventions took place throughout the day by artists Simon Raven and Dolly Sen. The festival concluded with the Cure All Cabaret; an evening of live music, performance and spoken word at Kingsley Hall, hosted by Baker and singer-songwriter Dylan Tighe with contributions from F.E.E.L poets and friends.