Any \u201cmainlander\u201d visiting the Bonavista Peninsula will be immediately charmed by the sapphire of the North Atlantic and the vibrant homes that dot its coastline. However, the Bonavista Biennale offers something much deeper than these touristic clich\u00e9s of Canada\u2019s easternmost province and transcends the region\u2019s colonial legacies.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In recent years, biennales have been questioned for succumbing to platitudes or criticized for their apathy toward ecological and economic crises. During the Bonavista Biennale\u2019s inaugural weekend, Newfoundland was in the midst of one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, and an Air Canada labour conflict left many visitors unsure of when they would be able to fly home. Despite this, there was an urgent sense of togetherness that underlined the event\u2019s opening days. Aptly titled String Games<\/em>, this edition of the biennale brought together over twenty artists who consider notions of play and connection. With a curatorial framework that equally prioritizes traditional craft and practices in contemporary art, the Bonavista Biennale looks forward and backward. Moving beyond slippery stereotypes of Newfoundland, this festival offers a singular richness strengthened by community hospitality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike biennales in urban centres, Bonavista does not take place in museums or public squares and the whole event certainly cannot be visited on foot. Instead, the rural region transforms its community halls, heritage homes, caf\u00e9s, and coastal neighbourhoods into galleries and plein-air installation sites. A map offers directions to each location on the 105-kilometre drive from sites one through seventeen, and guests are encouraged to get a passport stamped after each visit, making the road-trip experience feel like a game of Bingo or a scavenger hunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, the peninsula\u2019s scenery itself played a vital role, as site-specific installations interacted with the land, sea, and sky. In Sunset in Process<\/em> (2025), Lisa Myers invited guests to mark \u201cblueberry time\u201d by venturing to an adjacent bush to record where the sun\u2019s shadow fell on a handmade sundial. A series of Myers\u2019s serigraphs, printed using blueberry juice as ink, demonstrated the possibilities of this commonly harvested fruit. Stretched over a rockface in nearby Keels, Newfoundland-born artist Daniel Rumbolt\u2019s cast away & caught ashore <\/em>(2025) took the form of a fishing net. Tied with the same technique as his paternal grandfather had used and made with a retro-reflective fabric, Rumbolt\u2019s net captured not fish but light. In the afternoon sun its silver surface emitted a spectrum of colour, and under moonlight it glowed with an intensity that demanded attention even from a distance. Near a famous puffin-viewing site in Maberly, Melissa Tremblett\u2019s sculpture dreaming of caribou <\/em>(2025) stood like a beacon toward the ocean ahead. Referencing geometric motifs used in traditional Innu coat designs, the structure\u2019s acrylic panes of primary colours reflected onto an immersive raised platform, evoking a sacred quality in perpetual harmony with its surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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