CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area)

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CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area)

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CAFKA is a non-profit, artist-driven organization that presents a free biennial exhibition of contemporary art in the public spaces of Waterloo Region

CAFKA is a non-profit, artist-run organization that presents a biennial exhibition of contemporary art projects in the public spaces of the City of Kitchener and across the Region of Waterloo, inviting the public to meet regional, national and international artists and to experience the art they create. CAFKA promotes art education through its YouTube channel CAFKA.TV, and through its Big Ideas in Art & Culture series of artist talks and symposia. CAFKA creates experiences that are unexpected, surprising and memorable - setting up encounters with contemporary art that are intended to stimulate feelings, provoke thoughts and begin conversations. CAFKA is supported by the City of Kitchener, Musagetes, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, the City of Waterloo, individual donors and its many, many volunteers.

10/20/2026

Who is abbas akhvan?

abbas akhavan is a leading contemporary artist whose practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance. The direction of his research is influenced by his engagement with the places in which he works—their histories and architectures, as well as the economies and inhabitants that shape them. The garden—and by extension, the spaces and species just outside the home, such as backyards, public parks and other domesticated landscapes—has been a foundational and recurring subject in his work. abbas’ current exhibit, Entre chien et loup is being presented at the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Want to learn more about abbas' practice? Join us this Saturday in welcoming him for an artist talk, as a part of our Big Ideas in Arts + Culture lecture series.

October 24, 2026
5-6pm
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (101 Queen St. North, Kitchener)

Learn more at cafka.org/abbas-akhavan and get your free ticket on Eventbrite. 🎟🌻

Photo credits: (1) + (2) Francesco Barasciutti via National Gallery of Canada. (3) Jean Gaboury. (4) Rachel Topham Photography. (5) Toni Hafkenscheid.

Thank you to Musagetes, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery for supporting the presentation of abbas akhavan’s Big Ideas lecture.

10/16/2026

Something good is almost here 🌀

EXPAND: A night of dancing, art, and community to celebrate 25 years of CAFKA.

November 7
9pm to late
at The Arnold Collective
Cash bar

Featuring
Zoe
Kasia
Divvaa
Danasonic

Tickets on Eventbrite
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/expand-tickets-2003236642724

Text or call 528-328-0458 for address and details 📞

10/15/2026

Dianne McBride's 'Concise Collages' is opening on Saturday October 17 from 1-2:30pm at Cambridge Centre for the Arts in the Alleyway Gallery, alongside the 23rd Annual Juried show in the Gallery.

Dianne's collages collect and breath new life into paper. Most papers show age, a patina and a history that imbues each piece with a story. If you look closely, you may recognize familiar imagery. The collages will be available to view from October 17 to January 16.

Dianne McBride is a visual artist living and working in Cambridge, Ontario. Her works are in collections in New York, Switzerland, and throughout Canada. Several shows at the Chapel Studio in Roseville have included both her collages and acrylic paintings. She achieved Juror's 2nd place award 2025, at the Cambridge Centre for the Arts Juried Exhibition for ‘Bee Reno’, a collage assembled from salvaged renovation materials.

10/13/2026

Tales from the Understory – CAFKA.25 Catalogue Launch 🌼📝🌸💐

October 23
7-10pm
Whoopsie Daisy Drinks (1 Victoria St S Unit 1, Kitchener)

Readings at 8pm
Refreshments provided!

Come celebrate the catalogue launch for CAFKA.25: Field Guide to the Understory. The biennial catalogue is full of goodies – 131 pages of artwork and words from our CAFKA.25 Writers-in-Residence, Lauren Prousky and Shalaka Jadhav.

10/03/2026

keep an eye and an ear out, party people,
something good is coming

November 7
9pm

10/02/2026

This October, join us for an artist talk by abbas akhavan – a leading contemporary artist, currently representing Canada at the 2026 Venice Biennale.

October 24, 2026
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (101 Queen St. N., Kitchener)
5-6pm

Free, registration through Eventbrite
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/artist-talk-abbas-akhavan-tickets-2002597501034

akvanan is deeply and widely admired for the intuitive, observational, and ethical qualities of his artistic practice, which ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance.

We hope you will join in welcoming abbas to our community, and receiving what he shares with us!

Thank you to Musagetes, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery for supporting the presentation of abbas akhavan’s Big Ideas lecture.

09/24/2026

🎶🎵🔊

Senseless Sensibilities presents:

4 Musicians, 400 Speakers

Noise + ambient music in solos, duos and quartet

October 2, 2026
7:30PM
Carl Zehr Square (200 King St W, Kitchener)
$0/PWYC

IMPORTANT HAIR
Important Hair is the solo project of Waterloo-based composer and noise artist Connor Kurtz. Connor plays electronics, voice, turntables, piano, pipe organ, percussion and more. Connor's music has been released by tokinogake, Rearview Mountain, landscape su***de, Modelo Money, 5W Tapes, Ministry of Phonic Services, Gates of Hypnos, Female Stint, Basement Corner Emissions, and Homogyn Records. Connor also organizes experimental music concerts as Senseless Sensibilities.

OWEN KURTZ
Owen Kurtz is an experimental musician from Toronto, mainly working with electronics and sound playbacks. He is one half of the bands Sweet Lips and Wilderness Adventure Ride as well as one of the local representatives of the Ministry of Phonic Services.

WOOLWORM, ONTARIO
Woolworm, Ontario (she/her) is an Oakville, Ontario-based improviser and sound artist who exploits the slippery spaces between digital and analog technology. She uses the overlapping forces of texture and dismal tempo to develop atmospheric soundworlds aching with mood; theoretically concerned with themes of time-memory, consciousness, history, and justice. Has performed with The Ministry of Phonic Services, Exit Points, More Noise Please!, and The Music Gallery.

FLESHTONE AURA
Fleshtone Aura is the moniker of Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist Andrew Zukerman. He uses new & antiquated technologies to weave a sonic tapestry of familiar and foreign sounds that are at once dynamic and bewildering. With a penchant for re-contextualization, kinetic mixing & disorientation, he creates an illusionistic soundworld from fragments of the familiar. The project evolved out of the now-disbanded duo Gastric Female Reflex that was active from 2003-2013.

Presented by CAFKA on SPEAKERS ARENA, a modular sound sculpture by Benoît Maubrey.

Thank you to the Keith and Winifred Shantz Fund held at Waterloo Region Community Foundation and the City of Kitchener for supporting the presentation of SPEAKERS ARENA.

09/24/2026

What role will you play? 🤖🗣🎤👂👁

Ask Human Intelligence
Tricia Enns ()

Oct 1, 2026
6-8pm
Carl Zehr Square (200 King St. W.)

Ask Human Intelligence is a part comical and part serious play on technologies' influence – on how we connect and support one another (or don’t). In this work, rather then perceiving the chatbot as holding all the answers, it holds none of the answers and is only there as a receptionist, to approve (or not) and pass along questions to the human intelligence. Participants are welcomed and encouraged to insert themselves into the work, taking on the roles of spectator, question asker and/or human intelligence. As they engage with the performance, participants are invited to reflect on how technology both fractures and fosters togetherness through dictating what and how information is accessed.

Tricia Enns is an artist and designer currently based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, Québec, whose practice moves fluidly across disciplines, materials, and modes of inquiry. Originally from Waterloo, Ontario, their work combines low- and high-tech approaches to critically and playfully examine relationships to place, memory, and overlooked forms of knowledge.

Image sources: ,

09/23/2026

POGŁOS ZENGÉS: A sound that lingers in your ears for a little longer, even after its source has fallen silent.

Join us for a night of electronic music selected by Attila and Kasia 💜💛🩷🧡

September 30, 2026
6-9pm
Kitchener City Hall (200 King St. W.)

Presented by CAFKA on SPEAKERS ARENA, a modular sound sculpture by Benoît Maubrey.

Thank you to the Keith and Winifred Shantz Fund held at Waterloo Region Community Foundation and the City of Kitchener for supporting the presentation of SPEAKERS ARENA.

09/15/2026

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAFKA! ✌🖐️

Come celebrate with us:

Wednesday, September 16, 2026
5-11pm
Willow River (Victoria) Park (80 Schneider Ave., Kitchener)

Today, we celebrate all of the artwork, relationships, memories, and possibilities that CAFKA helped to create. We're calling this celebration: Expanded Reality.

The name Expanded Reality comes from CAFKA.06 – a biennial that never happened. For 25 years, we've expanded reality through avant-garde artworks, lasting community partnerships, and DIY-spirited experimentation about what is possible in our shared, everyday spaces.

Over the next few weeks, we are celebrating through singing, partying, performances, and the re-presentation of a beloved artwork: SPEAKERS ARENA.

We hope you will join us, and maybe even expand your reality 🔮💫👁

Address

141 Whitney Place, Studio 7
Kitchener, ON
N2G2X8

Telephone

+15197445123

Website

http://www.cafka.org/

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