A poster designed to accompany an exhibition of the same name, presented by the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, 2026. Weltformat size, 128 × 90.5 cm (50.3 × 35.6 inches), ink jet. Design by Robert Tombs.

 “In the 1990s, propelled by success as a graphic designer, she gained entry to Montreal’s filmmaking scene where her unique gifts allowed her to virtually invent the job of ‘specialized set decorator’. She ultimately worked on over thirty-five Canadian and Hollywood film productions of various genres where she excelled at responding to specialized set requests such as creating pond scum that wouldn’t rot during filming of The Fountain, a weathered rope suspension bridge for The Mummy 3: Curse of the Dragon Emperor and over 100 unique tombstones for Pet Semetery. Small became widely known for her skills of mining outdoor markets, alley ways, dump sites and junk shops for artefacts and materials that she could transform into unusual textures and effects that could add unique traces of life to the final layers of set dressing. 

In the early 2000s, while at a seasonal flea market, she was struck by an illustrated religious poster which directed her attention to the great number of vintage religious artefacts that were then coming up for sale. As found objects, their embedded messaging both fascinated and unsettled her and this inspired in her a desire to repurpose them with new concepts and assemblies. In this sense they are ‘readymades’ in the Duchampian manner. It is through her hard-won journey, from the machinations of film production, to chance discoveries of ‘sacred’ religious artifacts, and lived experience in Montreal that her sculptural practice has emerged, a space where she now creates works of empathy and irony which powerfully allude to social justice issues.”

> Robert Tombs, curator