Vancouver area commuters are in for a treat. As part of the 2026 Capture Photography Festival, an outdoor exhibition called Secret Ingredients has opened at Richmond-Brighouse Station, the final stop on the SkyTrain’s Canada Line. It’s the work of a local artist, Keely O’Brien, and her photographs are a high-glucose feast for the eyes. 

Five of O’Brien’s large-scale images will be appearing on the windows outside the station building until March next year. They’re pictures of cakes: decadent homemade confections decked with ribbons of multicoloured buttercream. And there’s a different message on each one — custom requests that are never so blah as “happy birthday.” O’Brien baked and decorated the gooey treats herself, and after staging a series of photos, she dropped them off with five virtual strangers from Vancouver. 

That was back in 2024, when the artist began working on an idea for a new experimental theatre project. “I had the idea that if there was something you were struggling to say to someone in your life, it would be helpful to send that message on a cake,” says O’Brien. “It’s a pretty silly and impractical idea, obviously, but it kind of got stuck in my head,” she laughs.

The reasons for her obsession were twofold. O’Brien was convinced the concept would uncover some sweet and sticky scenarios — top-notch ingredients for any compelling story. Plus, she just really loved baking, and as a hobbyist, she was keen to keep honing her sugar-craft skills. 

I had the idea that if there was something you were struggling to say to someone in your life, it would be helpful to send that message on a cake.– Keely O’Brien, artist

O’Brien eventually took her idea public, and began offering her unusual messenger service to people in Vancouver. She spread the word on social media and Craigslist and collected delivery requests through an online form. “I was curious about this theme of interpersonal vulnerability and honesty and what happens when we say hard things to each other,” she says. “Putting it on a cake just made it seem funny. It sweetened the hard message.”

Her experience bringing emotionally charged dessert to random locations has become the foundation of her touring stage show (also called Secret Ingredients). Since its premiere at Vancouver’s Hold On Let Go festival of contemporary performance, the show has been presented in Halifax and Whitehorse, and O’Brien says further Canadian dates are on deck for this year.

Before the show arrives in a new town, she opens a call for submissions. Locals send her their cake requests: confessions, heartfelt sentiments, secret desires. By the time the curtain goes up, the story of a fresh cake — with a distinctly regional flavour — has been added to the script.

O’Brien’s food photographs, like the ones appearing at Richmond-Brighouse Station, are projected on stage during performances. SkyTrain commuters will be missing out on the project’s most delicious aspect, however. The live show doubles as a dessert course, with O’Brien offering samples of the cakes she talks about. “We eat along with the stories,” she says, and the flavours are meant to evoke the feelings behind every message in piped frosting. Anger is spicy, burnt and roasted, for example. Surprise tastes clean, fresh and herbal.

To date, O’Brien has baked and delivered close to 20 cakes, and more than 100 people have requested her services. Deciding which messages will be immortalized in carbs is a “delicate and slightly intuitive process,” she says. The stage show covers a broad range of relationships: friends, neighbours, family, romantic partners, co-workers. “I’m also trying to find messages that feel genuinely hard to say. But that also feel thoughtful and nuanced.”

Here are the stories behind some of the photos appearing at Richmond-Brighouse Station right now.

“I broke and threw out your ceramic knife. Sorry for lying”

This is the first cake O’Brien ever delivered, and it was sent from one roommate to another.  The duo had a complicated dynamic, and according to O’Brien, the sender repeatedly denied the cutlery-crime in question. “I think it was a pretty brave thing for them to just come clean about what had happened,” she says, and in the end, the cake smoothed things over like so much frosting. “They thought it was funny and loved eating the cake,” she says, “and it improved their relationship and their sense of security in their home. That one had a really happy ending.”

“I miss cooking with you”

This cake was requested by someone trying to reach a father figure from their youth. “It was a relationship that was becoming more and more distant,” says O’Brien, and the cake was an attempt to reconnect. To capture the mixed emotions at play in this story, O’Brien layered an unusual blend of flavours. “There was a lot of love in [this cake] and love tastes floral and sweet.” To hit those notes, she used lavender and vanilla. “And then, there was definitely sadness in that one — which is salty, bitter and medicinal. That cake had a bitter dark chocolate filling.”

“We should be together. Let’s take the next step?”

“I corresponded quite a bit with the sender about the ups and downs of this relationship,” says O’Brien, who eventually left this cake with a “handsome and confused man.” What happened next was bittersweet, she explains. The sender — a mystery woman from Vancouver — didn’t get the response she’d wished for. “The cake helped clarify that they shouldn’t be together,” says the artist. But the experience led to something wonderful in the end. “In that breakup she found a lot of belief in what she deserved,” says O’Brien. “And actually, she’s now one of my friends.”

Keely O’Brien. Secret Ingredients. Richmond-Brighouse Station, Richmond, B.C. To March 1, 2027. www.capturephotofest.com