Secret Ingredients, 2024

Secret Ingredients began as a call-out by the artist to the public to submit messages they found difficult to express directly to someone in their life, but felt ready to share. These messages were transformed into decorated cakes and delivered to the intended recipients as an edible form of communication. To date, over seventy-five messages have been submitted and fifteen cakes baked and delivered. Since the initial call, the project has expanded to include a live performance and a growing photographic archive of these intimate, resonant cakes.

Exhibited now as a series of photographs at the Canada Line’s Richmond-Brighouse Station, they become an unexpected moment of reflection during a commute. The project aligns with the artist’s thematic focus on storytelling, community, movement, and histories, inviting viewers to consider the invisible emotional landscapes that surround them. Each cake is a private moment made public, connecting strangers through the humour, joy, challenge, and longing of relationships. Secret Ingredients offers a poetic, playful lens into the quiet emotional currents that travel alongside us every day.

Secret Ingredients was developed in Theatre Replacement’s COLLIDER artist residency, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Presented and funded by the City of Richmond Public Art Program and Richmond Art Gallery in partnership with Capture.