Better think twice before sinking your teeth into these sweet treats by Brooklyn-based artist Spencer Merolla, because its main ingredient is something that won’t sit well with your stomach — coal ash.
In an effort to raise awareness on coal power and its harmful role in the acceleration of climate change, Merolla launched Coal Comforts: a pop-up concept bakery selling inedible ash-moulded goodies in cake, cookie or lollipop forms.
Each of the faux pastries are sinister dangers wrapped in an innocuous packaging — a stab not just at the coal mining industry and dirty energy itself, but also (or should we say especially) at the current administration’s blatant about-face in dealing with climate change. The symbolism of her use of ash — an evocative material often associated with personal mortality and communal annihilation — is not lost on us. “Like the sweet treats we might find in an old-fashioned bakery, a little dirty energy might look like a harmless enough indulgence, but our global consumption patterns will be our undoing,” explains Merolla. “Put simply, we can’t have our cake and eat it too.”
The Kickstarter-funded bakery made its debut last October 2017 at the annual Gowanus Open Studios weekend. You can buy your own “pastries” on her website’s shop: 25% of the proceeds are donated to the Citizens Climate Lobby. Follow Merolla on Instagram.
Images via SpencerMerolla.com / with permission