PERFORMANCEBakeSale

BAKE SALE is an interactive public performance project that functions as a small income generator. It is a business model that aims at fostering community and generosity amongst people. The particular group of sales documented here took place on the UW-Madison Campus. Five departments across the campus were chosen to have a sale- Business, Gender and Women’s Studies, Nuclear Engineering, Stem Cell Research and Art. I made a different cookie cutter for each department.

The project is also intended to provoke thought and challenge general assumptions as to the Who, What, Where, and Why of my intentions. Many of the sites I chose were already contested spaces as the campus has a long, turbulent history with protest. I wanted to see how these known variables would interact with my process of raising funds.

Cookies were exchanged for a donation to the department I was raising funds for that day. The relationship of the shapes to each department was, by varying degrees, politically or socially contested and was intended to spark conversation and dialog. For the Business School, I made cent shaped cookies. For Gender & Women Studies, I made men with sprinkles on their privates. For Nuclear Engineering, I made the symbol for radiation. For Stem Cell Research, I made fetus shaped cookies. And for the Art Department, I made urinals. The suggested donation was $2, but any monetary amount yielded a cookie.

The not-for-profit business I created, One Smart Cooky, was a model in response to the CEC (current economic climate). I strongly believe that in this CEC, it is important to refrain from recoiling into modes of self-preservation. Instead we can work to find alternative ways that we can weather this economic storm, connecting to each other to work as a support rather than fight to get ahead.

I showed up, unannounced, at each departmental site during the late lunch hour. Each sale was different from the next. Students ignored me at the Business School, but administrators and faculty were extremely generous.

Faculty members who founded the department of Gender and Women’s Studies heard about my sale through the grapevine and came out of their offices to buy cookies.

I had a conversation about Newton’s Third Law with a Statics TA in front of the Nuclear Engineering Department, as well as other things like inter-departmental politics.