Birthday Cake
Video
3:14
2021

Commissioned by Wells Projects and funded by Arts Council England.

Birthday Cake is based on the 1996 song of the same name by the band Cibo Matto. The song lyrics refer to a woman making a birthday cake for her son, who is turning 30. The cake includes mouldy milk and huge amounts of ingredients that have no place in a cake, yet the mother insists she is making the cake out of love. She is an overbearing presence who believes that more is better- and refuses to believe she is making her offspring sick. I play the part of the mother and the son in the video, which is set in the kitchen as she makes the cake. I am the quintessential cartoon mom and son, exaggerating the relationship between the two.