Cake is Jesus

Pukka Gallery had a re-opening party this past weekend that involved cake performance art. It was put together by two Ottawa artists – Karina Bergmans and Jenny McMaster. Jenny wore one of her works: a three-tier cake dress. It was assessorized with Karina’s blueberry loafers. Karina displayed her plaster cake sculptures. Both read from Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman and Jenny sang the song "If I Had Known You Were Coming (I Would Have Baked You A Cake)". Cake was also served.
Karina and Jenny’s work explores how cake has come to represent more than just dessert. Jenny believes it’s come to stand for perceptions of female sexuality. It’s seen as a seductive decadence – a temptress. The idea of a woman jumping out of a cake links the seductiveness to femininity.
The concept from Karina and Jenny that I was most interested in is the idea that cake is a way for people to share a common experience. You expect cake at a birthday party or a wedding as the climax of the event. If it’s a birthday, people know to burst out into song when the cake is brought out. If it’s a wedding, the couple knows to wait for the cameras before making the first cut into the marzipan. And everyone feels the pressure to take a piece of the cake at a gathering, even if they’re not hungry or in the mood for cake. That’s because refusing is a lot like passing up the chance to be part of a greater whole. Even if a person does refuse cake, they’re often under pressure to explain why. My office is a perfect example of this. We serve cake at people’s birthdays more as a chance for people to take a break and gather than to actual eat cake. I actually love the ritual. Most of us at work usually don’t have time to take a lunch break most days, so bonding over someone’s birthday, sharing from the same plate of cake is a rare moment to pause. Then we rush back to our desks to meet deadlines. There’s a ceremony associated with cake that Jenny and Karina believe has come to replace some of the traditional ceremonies in people’s lives. Such as the rituals of church. Not that either of them think cake is the new religion. But there’s an adoration of food today that fits with that idea. It kind of makes sense. Is that a good thing? I don’t know. But in a society that is more diverse in beliefs, less church-going, living more individualized self-service lives, food seems to be one of the lasting pieces of common ground.