A little … too ironic?

theatlantic:

Sugar-Based Graffiti That Confronts America’s Legacy of Slavery

Miller has been making wall paintings from piped frosting since 2001; more recently, she’s experimented with pieces that use hardened sugar tiles. For the piped graffiti, she employs a recipe for Royal Icing, otherwise known as the glue that cements gingerbread houses. The saccharine goo is made with “meringue powder, water, and powdered sugar,” Miller says. “It dries really hard, almost like plaster.”

The artist hasn’t been fooling around with frosting for more than a decade to prep for Ace of Cakes. The art contains a subtext that’s as bitter as gall: She wants us to remember the era when European powers enslaved a huge chunk of Africa to sustain their precious New World sugar plantations. During a 300-year span that began in the 16th century, “white gold” became so treasured that it accounted for a third of Europe’s whole economy; more than 10 million African slaves made the horrific “Middle Passage” to the Americas to help feed the beast.

Read more. [Images: Shelley Miller]