To exactly quote Bridget Baker’s artist statement:
The Official BB Mittens Project is the third in the series of ’ÄúOfficial BB Projects’Äù, declarations on life according to ’ÄúOfficial BB’Äù wisdom. In all these projects Bridget actively cajoles her audience to take part beyond their own reason, where personal understanding is often consolidated through spontaneous action.
This Project was first performed in Cape Town in 2003 as an action for Gallery Puta’Äôs first curated show. In 2005 Baker performed the project at Liste ’Äô05 in Basel and in Bielefeld in Germany at 20+ (an Artists Unlimited group exhibition).
In this project, Bridget performs as a clandestine soothsayer: weary of her audience, while simultaneously offering treatment and pampering. This project begins at one circular hole in a wall, cut at waist height. Plastic camping watercontainers and an inscribed towel are the only other items in the room.
Inscribed in pencil on either side of the holes are a set of ’ÄúOfficial BB’Äù rules, instructions inviting Baker’Äôs audience to unwittingly trust her by putting a hand through the hole, thereby embarking on a regime of intimate processes that ultimately lead to the participants enjoying physical pleasure. Once the participants have removed their jewellery and washed their hands, they insert their hands into the holes. Baker, hidden on the other side of the wall, then subjects her participants hands to a therapeutic hot wax treatment, finally gloving the wax covered hands in ’ÄúOfficial BB Project’Äù trademark mittens that have been specially hand knitted. The BB mittens are applied as a catalyst to complete the action and at the same time advertise the BB brand. The participants are then free to interact with other participants in the room while the wax treatment takes effect. After about ten minutes the participants return to the holes in order to get the wax and mittens removed.
The participants leave the room rewarded with pampered hands.
According to BB wisdom: In life as in art rules are set and when followed explicitly an unexpected amount of pleasure is derived.
