Inequality Bakery

Village Storefront Project

53A Jobs Lane

Southampton, NY

February 5 - March 1, 2021

Art in unexpected places can be jarring, evocative, and delightful. By creating the Inequality Bakery, I aim to stop passersby in their tracks by reminding them that the occasions we celebrate, such as birthdays and anniversaries, also call to mind all those who could not attend our parties. During this global crisis of climate emergency, social injustice, and pandemic, “cupcakes” threaten to bite each other, and “cakes” supporting portraits of dead birds, teeth, decrepit crowns, and pushpins all express our new reality. I created all the cupcakes and cakes with all their disparate decorations out of glazed English porcelain over the past few years. The cakes slowly rotate on doily-clad turntables animating the presentation, and glistening “cloud" sculptures sway overhead, symbolizing darkness and light. 

This village storefront intervention creates the intimacy of looking in a bakery window, where people discovering it one or two at a time are launched into childhood memories and daily desires for sweets and treats. It's an extraordinary opportunity to integrate art into everyday life, to surprise viewers with the realization that the confections are inedible, and to take them on their personal journey of free-associations with the discordant elements integrated into the "baked goods.” The Southampton sidewalk is the perfect location for pondering these contradictions.

Photos by Jenny Gorman