http://www.bonavistabiennale.com/

Bonavista Biennale, 16-20 Church Street, Bonavista, NL (2026)

03/12/2026

Bonavista Biennale is seeking a Curator or Curators to work closely with us to realize the 2027 Biennale. Building on what the Biennale has achieved to date, the Curator(s) will bring their vision and expertise to the opportunity of growing the Biennale’s provincial, national and international reputation, while remaining sensitive to regional and community priorities and concerns.

Learn more: https://bonavistabiennale.com/now-hiring-2025-curator/

Images:
1. Haruna Sugisaki and visitors finalizing the installation of “Memory in the Ice,” 2025.
2. Marianne Nicolson, “From a Distance,” 2025. Commissioned by Bonavista Biennale.
3. Melissa Tremblett, “dreaming of caribou,” 2025. Commissioned by Bonavista Biennale.
4. Lindsay Katsitsakatste Delaronde, “Sturgeon Woman Rising,” 2023. Co-commissioned by Bonavista Biennale and MOMENTA Biennale de l’image, Montreal.
5. Glenn Gear, “katitsuik | collect, gather,” 2023.
6. Couzyn van Heuvelen, “Nitsiit,” 2023 (detail). Commissioned by Bonavista Biennale.
Photos: Brian Ricks.

02/04/2026

Today, we’re sending our thanks to Rose Bouthillier for her contributions as Artistic Director of the Bonavista Biennale over the past four years. During her time with our organization, she helped us raise the Biennale’s profile nationally and internationally, and expanded our reach to many new networks and partners. We’re wishing Rose the best in all her future endeavours.

10/27/2025

At the conclusion of each Bonavista Biennale we compile results and prepare an impact report for distribution to our funders, partners, stakeholders and the public. The report details the impacts the Biennale has on artists and the arts and culture sector, as well as the economic impacts the Biennale has throughout the Bonavista Peninsula through both visitor spending and job creation.

Our 2025 Impact Report is now available for download. Find it here:
https://bonavistabiennale.com/2025-bonavista-biennale-impact-report-released/

Images:
1) Visitors experience Douglas Penney’s Stone Garden Tour.
2) Haruna Sugisaki and visitors finalizing the installation of Memory in the Ice, 2025, at Landfall Municipal Park, Bonavista.
3) Brian Amadi, Foreigner at Home, 2024-2025, digital images on canvas. Installation view, Two Whales Coffee Shop, Port Rexton.
4) Daniel Rumbolt, cast away & caught ashore, 2025, woven grey retro reflective polyester. Installation view, Keels Cove.
5) Melissa Tremblett, dreaming of caribou, 2025, structure with plexiglass, aluminum and wood. Installation view, South Bird Island picnic platform, Maberly.
6) Marianne Nicolson, From a Distance, 2025, land-based installation with painted wood rounds. Installation view, Pat Murphy’s Meadow, King’s Cove.
All photos by Brian Ricks.

10/25/2025

Opportunity! Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener + Area is currently seeking submissions for its next biennial exhibition of contemporary art in public spaces during June + July 2027.

Selected artists will be paid CARFAC 2027 solo exhibition fees and will receive curatorial, logistic, and administrative support for their project.

All the details here: https://www.cafka.org/news/call-submissions-cafka27-biennial

📷: Monument (Sundial) by Adam Basanta in Willow River (Victoria) Park. Photo by Iqra Majeed.

CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area)

09/20/2025

We end our thank yous with gratitude to all of the artists who participated in the 2025 Bonavista Biennale. Artists and their work are at the core of everything we do.

With the theme of “String Games,” this edition of the Biennale spoke to resourcefulness, the spark of imagination, intergenerational knowledge, and collaborative world-building. The work on view was personal and playful. It showed us the powerful ways that making, and experiencing, art connects us to place, through time, and in community.

Thank you for sharing your art with us:

Brian Amadi
Ann-Sofie Kallok, Ánna-Katri Helander, Sebastian Björkman & Anthoni Hætta (presented in partnership with Dáiddadállu)
Eastern Owl (Jenelle Duval, Stacey Howse, Kayla Stride, Danielle Benoit, Natasha Blackwood, Jaime O’Leary, and Rebecca Sharr)
Clara Clayton Gough
Maureen Gruben
Michael Massie
Ethan Murphy
Lisa Myers
Marianne Nicolson
Douglas Penney
Toby Rabinowitz
Daniel Rumbolt
Sancia Miala Shiba Nash
Inuuteq Storch
Haruna Sugisaki
Melissa Tremblett
Larry Weyand
The Women’s Institute (featuring members Alice Russell, Annie Goodyear, Barbara Bradley, Cindy Tippett, Clara Duffett, Deanne Hiscock, Doreen Rumbolt, Emma Abbott, Jocelyn Dalton, Joyce Poole, Kathy Roberts, Krista Bursey, Linda Clarke, Linda Cox, Margaret Abbott, Milley Johnson, Myra Russell, Pauline Sheppard, Rhonda Abbott, Terri McDonald, Wanda Brine, Winifred Mackey, Yvonne Abbott)

A special exhibition featuring Sarah Baikie, Andrea Flowers, and Nellie Winters was curated by Ella Jacque, Vanessa Flowers, and Jessica Winters

Keep an eye out for the “String Games” catalogue, coming out later this fall, which will document all of the artists’ work brought together in this year’s Biennale.

09/19/2025

Our thanks today goes to the entire Biennale team who came together to make all the magic happen. Just like a string game, our team wove their work together seemlessly and we became much more than the sum of our parts to create this year's exhibition.

Shout outs 🙌 all round:

2025 Bonavista Biennale team
Executive Director: Sue Balint
Artistic Director: Rose Bouthillier
Curator: Dr. Heather Igloliorte
Program Assistants: Chloe Lundrigan, Georgia Morris .lndrgn

Installation Team: Kym Greeley, Jojo Greeley, Julie Oh, Michael Pittman, Bethany MacKenzie, Kenzie Dean, Josh Jensen
@josh.jensen

Site Ambassadors: Linda Abbott, Rhonda Abbott, Barbara Bradley, Joan Carpenter, Kenzie Dean, Sheila Diamond, Betty Fitzgerald, Ashley Hillman, Emma Howell, Marguerite Johnson, Bonnie Mackey, Anthony Pearce, Fay Prince, Neville Samson, Olivia Taylor, Jocelyn White

Graphic Design: Mark Bennett
Website Developer: Matthew Hollett
Publicist: David Sorensen

2025 Board of Directors:
Paul McDonald, Chair
Margaret Ryall, Vice-Chair
David A. Hood, Treasurer
Cassandra Filice, Secretary
Members: Angela C. Antle, Andrew Bell, Robert Bradbury, Megan Burt, Marc Losier, Logan MacDonald, James Quinlan, Luke Redmond, Terri Roberts, Karen Skinner

1) Sancia Miala Shiba Nash, Kuroshio, 2025, video still, 2-channel video with sound, 20 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
2) Maureen Gruben, still from Stitching My Landscape, 2017, video, 6:10 minutes. Commissioned by Partners In Art for Landmarks/Repères 2017. Courtesy of the artist.
3) Michael Massie, eeeeeeeeeeee… string games, 2025, caribou antler, pebble, ebony, rabbit fur and artificial sinew. Installation view, The Factory, Port Union. Photo: Brian Ricks.
4) Braided rug workshop, presented by Heritage NL at Union House Arts, Port Union. Photo: Brian Ricks.
5) Daniel Rumbolt, cast away & caught ashore, 2025, woven grey retroreflective polyester. Installation view, Keels Cove. Photo: Brian Ricks.

09/18/2025

Thank you to all of the Biennale's incredible sponsors, funders, partners and individual donors at all levels who supported the 2025 edition. We're in awe at the vast network of organization's from around the globe who came together to make this year's exhibition possible.

Notably, the 2025 Biennale was produced, in part, in partnership with Dr. Heather Igloliorte’s Canada Excellence Research Chair in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices and the Taqsiqtuut Indigenous Research-Creation Lab at the University of Victoria.

Supporters of the Bonavista Biennale’s 2025 edition include Canada Council for the Arts, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Year of the Arts, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, ArtsNL, Fortis Inc., TD Bank, RBC Royal Bank, Genoa Design International, Partners in Art, Danish Arts Foundation, Norwegian Embassy (Ottawa), NAPA (Nordic Institute in Greenland), National Centre for Art Research in Japan, Japan Foundation (Toronto), and Steers Insurance.

2025 program partners include Curating Change, Hawai’i Triennial, Fogo Island Arts, Garrick Theatre, Union House Arts, Discovery UNESCO Global Geopark, Heritage NL, Riddle Fence and Port Rexton Brewery.

1) Braided rug workshop presented by Heritage NL
2) Union House Arts Garden Party on the closing eve of the Biennale
3) Maureen Gruben, still from Stitching My Landscape, 2017, video, 6:10 minutes. Commissioned by Partners In Art for Landmarks/Repères 2017. Courtesy of the artist. Originally commissioned by Partners in Art for the exhibition Landmarks/Repères, 2017.

council .arts.council

09/18/2025

ICYMI...our latest newsletter hit the digital newstands yesterday.

As de-installation continues around the peninsula this week, here's your round-up of some of the highlights, media coverage and just how many of you joined us this year!

You can read the complete newsletter here: https://conta.cc/3IacKmV

09/17/2025

A very heartfelt THANK YOU to all of the 2025 Bonavista Biennale site partners!

Our unconventional sites are a big part of what makes the Biennale so special. Artists are inspired by these unique environments, which place their work in conversation with local histories and the complex environmental, social, and economic forces shaping the Peninsula.

We deeply appreciate all of the time and energy our site partners put into hosting Biennale projects.

2025 Bonavista Biennale: “String Games” site partners:

Maudie’s Tea Room at Mesh’s General Store
Keels Community Hall (Keels Catholic Women’s Association)
Pat Murphy’s Meadow (Town of King’s Cove)
King’s Cove Community Hall (Town of King’s Cove)
Ryan Premises (Parks Canada) .canada
Generator Shack (Bonavista Historic Townscape Foundation)
Landfall Municipal Park (Town of Bonavista)
Calvin Hayley Event Centre (Tourism Elliston)
South Bird Island picnic platform (Town of Elliston)
The Factory (Sir William F. Coaker Heritage Foundation)
Union House Arts
Port Union-Catalina-Little Catalina Women’s Institute
Two Whales Coffee Shop
Fishermen’s Protective Union Store (Town of Port Rexton)
Lester-Garland House (Trinity Historical Society)
Hiscock House (Provincial Historic Sites, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador).

09/16/2025

Thank you for joining us at the 2025 Bonavista Biennale: String Games!

We are so grateful to each and every visitor who joined us on the Bonavista peninsula between August 16 - September 14. We're still reading through all your inspiring comments in our guest books and tallying final attendance figures, but it looks like nearly 20,000 of you joined us for our fifth anniversary edition.

While de-installation is already underway here, we're also taking time to remember just how wonderful the past month has been celebrating contemporary art in unconventional spaces with you.

xo,
the biennale team

1) Daniel Rumbolt installing his work cast away & caught ashore, at Keels Cove.
2) Artist Michael Massie discusses his work “pop” art in suspension, 2025, with a visitor at The Factory, Port Union.
3) Haruna Sugisaki and visitors finalizing the installation of Memory in the Ice, 2025, at Landfall Municipal Park, Bonavista. The work was made in collaboration with community members on the Bonavista Peninsula, with 56 natural pigments made from local soil, plants, seashells, rocks and found whale bone.
4) Douglas Penney guides visitors through his Garden of Silent Stones in English Harbour.
5) Larry Weyand chats with visitors about their work Fabulous Little Lobster, 2025, at the Ryan Premises Salt Shed, Bonavista.
6) Signage for Site 1, Keels Cove, showing the work of Daniel Rumbolt.
All photos by Brian Ricks.

09/11/2025

As part of the UHA Garden Gathering this Sunday, Megan Samms will host a community reflection session on the 2025 Bonavista Biennale towards the end of the gathering (~6:30-7 pm).

This reflection is a bookend to those offered by Reneltta Arluk during the Biennale’s opening weekend. Together, these moments engage with what is witnessed and heard throughout the Biennale, and how it can be taken forward.

Megan Samms (they/she) is an L’nu and Nlha7kápmx visual artist, Indigenous agriculturalist, beekeeper, and community worker who, drawing from her varied practices, works collaboratively with mediums to articulate story, messages, and continued dialogue within their respective historic and contemporary place-based contexts. She lives in her home community in one of their two ancestral territories: Katalisk, Ktaqmkuk, Mi’kma’ki, Wabanaki Territory. Samms shares work both in non-conventional or non-institutional spaces in community, at regional galleries, various festivals, and in formalized art spaces as well. Samms was a participating artist at the 2023 Bonavista Biennale, “Host,” and is the chair of the board of Union House Arts. Their (continued) education is Land, peer-to-peer, and mentorship based.

Images:
1. Megan Samms. Photo: Pilvi Keto LeBlanc.
2. Reneltta Arluk, Reflection at the Biennale Conversations program, August 18.

09/11/2025

Closing weekend will soon be upon us, but there are still two events this Sunday that we'd love to see you at! Both are free to attend and everyone is welcome.

Women’s Institute Talk & Tour
Sunday, September 14, 2 pm
100 Discovery Trail, Port Union
Join members of the Port Union-Catalina-Little Catalina Women’s Institute for a talk & tour of their Biennale exhibition.

UHA Garden Gathering
Sunday, September 14, 3-7 pm
Union House Arts
74 Main Road, Port Union
Our friends at Union House Arts are planning their annual Garden Gathering to coincide with the Biennale’s last day! Join us for an afternoon and early evening of live music, food, fun, door prizes, and all-ages arts and crafts activities.

Bonavista Biennale

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