August 16–September 14, 2025
Ayaraut. Na’atl’o’. Ayatori. Cat’s Cradle. String Games are one of the oldest forms of handcraft, invented by cultures around the world to tell stories, share wisdom, highlight dexterity, and evoke vivid and fleeting images. Through the careful manipulation of strings of thread, fiber, or sinew, new shapes, figures, and pictures are formed. With endless possibilities bound in a single loop, these games speak to resourcefulness, the spark of imagination, collaborative world-building, and the celebration of the handmade. These connections are woven through time and space, and passed down intergenerationally for millennia, intertwining the past with the present.
This edition of the Bonavista Biennale invites local and visiting artists alike to consider what ties them to place. Many of the artists featured in String Games—whether they are from Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland) or Nunatsiavut or Nitassinan (Labrador), or connected to these lands by air and oceans—are themselves from islands or remote places, where distance shapes community bonds and notions of time. The artists also forefront traditional crafts, folk histories, and intergenerational knowledge. Collaboration, play, and the spirit of creativity are celebrated alongside family, community, and international connections. Together, the artists in String Games invite us to see and feel something new, through the images, forms, sounds, and movements that they share.
For the first time, artists from multiple international locations have been invited to participate in the Biennale. Hailing from other island, ocean or circumpolar locations, including Hawai’i, Japan, Kalaallit Nunaat / Greenland, and Sápmi / Norway, they share resonant contexts, histories and contemporary realities with artists in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Participating artists:
Brian Amadi
Sarah Baikie
Dáiddadállu
Eastern Owl
Andrea Flowers
Clara Clayton Gough
Maureen Gruben
Michael Massie
Ethan Murphy
Lisa Myers
Marianne Nicolson
Taqralik Partridge
Douglas Penney
Toby Rabinowitz
Daniel Rumbolt
Sancia Miala Shiba Nash
Inuuteq Storch
Haruna Sugisaki
Melissa Tremblett
Larry Weyand
Nellie Winters
The Women’s Institute
Opening Weekend Activities (August 16-18, 2025)
Biennale artists and curators will be gathering on the Bonavista Peninsula August 16-18 to celebrate the opening of String Games. Artists will be present at their sites on the afternoon of Saturday, August 16, and symposium to mark the Biennale’s milestone fifth edition will take place on Sunday and Monday, August 17-18, bringing artists and the public into dialogue on the Biennale’s impact, potential, and future direction.
Additional programming
A full program of performances, tours, artist talks and workshops, as well as the 2025 site map, will be announced later this spring.
String Games is curated by Dr. Heather Igloliorte, in collaboration with Rose Bouthillier, Artistic Director for Bonavista Biennale. A special exhibition of works by senior makers from Nunatsiavut is co-curated by Jessica Winters, Ella Jacque, and Vanessa Flowers.
The 2025 Biennale is being produced in partnership with 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.
Download the full press release here.