6 minute read
Artful Excursion Around the Bay
By Wendy Rose
The Bonavista Biennale has the potential to draw large crowds (safely) to small towns this summer.
Wendy Rose photo
THE BIANNUAL BONAVISTA BIENNALE
returns to the Bonavista Peninsula this summer, offering “contemporary art embedded in historic spaces and age-old landscape” from August 14 to September 12. The sites, which boast works of 26 artists as well as past Biennale artists, are scattered around Red Cliff, Duntara, King’s Cove, Knight’s Cove, Hodderville, Upper Amherst Cove, Bonavista, Elliston, Maberly, Catalina, Port Union, Champney’s West, Port Rexton and Trinity. In offering so many sights to see and so many sites to visit, the Biennale gives visitors the grand tour of the Bonavista Peninsula in a unique, interesting, informative and entertaining way.
NUTSHIMIT by Melissa Tremblett
“Our mission is to make a positive social, economic and cultural impact on the peninsula,” says Biennale coexecutive director Sarah Agnew.
“We do that by bringing art here that people wouldn’t necessarily have access to – you know, a curated collection or exhibition of national and international and provincial art.” In turn, the exhibits encourage tourism (and spending) in the area that Sarah, formerly a Toronto resident, now calls home.
Sarah was still living in Ontario when the idea of the Biennale was born a few years ago, but got involved upon moving to the island. Canada’s 150th anniversary celebration – and ensuing funding – helped turn that idea into a reality in 2017. “A lot of Biennales somewhere around the world are motivated by what was called a social mission,” she explains, “so a mission like that – to bring some positive, measurable impact to the place where they are, including economic impact.”
Many Biennales and festivals were heavily impacted this year (and last year) by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the Bonavista Biennale occurs every second year, the curators and committees had ample time to prepare for their 2021 event, ensuring the show would go on.
“By January, we knew we could do it. We just needed to change the way we do some things,” Sarah explains, noting that many exhibitions are outdoors, while indoor exhibits are designed to encourage social distancing.
Despite additional policies and protocols, morale is high and the excitement is growing, she says. “Artists are very excited that a) something is going on they can participate in, and b) to be able to mount an exhibition and have visitors and so on.”
One of the many exhibitions that the 2021 Bonavista Biennale boasts is “Regeneration | Piguttaugiallavalliajuk | Ussanitauten: Seven Northern Labrador Photographers.” This exhibit, curated by Jessica Winters of Nunatsiavut, features work from Eldred Allen, Gary Andersen, Holly Andersen, Wayne Broomfield, Samantha Jacque, Melissa Tremblett and Jennie Williams. Jessica says she reached out to as many photographers as she could, as well as knowledgeable friends and family members with more connections, to help facilitate the process of selecting artists for the Regeneration project.
“We ended up with photos from seven photographers who both excelled in content and quality,” she says. “The hard part was narrowing down on the actual photos we would use… We wanted to include as wide of a diversity as we could. Each photographer had very unique work.”
“I think they’re pretty excited. They’re glad to have the opportunity,” Sarah adds. “Some are fairly well-known, some have had more opportunity to exhibit or are sort of farther along, but for at least one or two, it’ll be their very first exhibition… Many of them are self-taught and it’s just a passion they have for capturing the beauty of their land and their way of life.”
“I first picked up the camera and fell in love with taking photos as a teenager, when we still used film cameras,” exhibiting artist Jennie Williams shares. “I knew then that for my career in life that I wanted to be a photographer. I always loved art from a young age and spent lots of time drawing and being creative –when I had the camera it always made me happy.”
After 13 years as a professional photographer, Jennie still gets excited to share her photography from Labrador, and her culture. “My favourite thing to photograph is people in their everyday lives doing regular things they always do, and capturing the beauty in that,” she says.
The Regeneration exhibit can be found at the Quinton Premises, a heritage site in Red Cliff.
MANAGE by Jennie Williams
SCULL OF HARP SEALS by Eldred Allen
EXCITEMENT FOR EVERYONE
It’s not just Labrador photographers making their way to the island for the Bonavista Biennale. With news that Canada is opening to travel, the Biennale will be able to have some of the showcasing artists visit the province during the monthlong event.
“That makes for a lot more fun for us, to have them here and for them to install their own work and be a part of it,” Sarah says.
“It’s also part of the fun for our visitors… to meet the artists, which they can do over opening weekend,” she adds. “That’s also when some of them do workshops for us, so the public gets to interact with [the artists] in that way. The more we can have here, the merrier, that’s for sure!”
While the organizers are understandably excited to bring these artists to the Bonavista Peninsula, they’re also excited to work with the many local people who help make this event possible.
“We work very closely with a lot of community partners and organizations that allow us to use their buildings or their premises for our exhibition sites,” says Sarah. “We have people in the community that deal with the artists when they come out. We have all kinds of relationships out here.”
However, the Biennale is most excited about bringing people out from other peninsulas, coasts, bays, towns and cities to take in the long list of exhibitions and installations. It’s definitely enough to fill up a weekend – or two! – and entertain the whole family.
“You don’t have to do it all in two days. You probably need three days to do every single thing while doing some other things along the way,” Sarah notes, before adding that since the Biennale runs for a month, “you can also come out just for a night or for a day even... then go back, then come out again!”
Multiple visits to the Bonavista Peninsula and the numerous Biennale sites actually lends itself well to this year’s theme: “The Tonic of Wildness.” Based on a quote from Henry Thoreau, this theme grew more and more suitable as the pandemic continued.
“Never have we needed wildness as much as we need it now,” Sarah says. “This is a time of unprecedented crisis on the planet, and much, much, much of it is human caused… That’s what artists are exploring in their work. So a lot of [the art] will be quite environmentally focused – reflections on nature and drawn from nature.”
