Bonavista Peninsula plays 'host' to 23 contemporary art works for 2023 biennale

The Bonavista Biennale, a world-class public art event filled with immersive and sometimes challenging art, is back across the Bonavista Peninsula.

The event, held every second year, features contemporary art works displayed and performed over a 165 kilometre-long area.  

This year's theme is "host," and participating artists were invited to interpret that theme however they wished. 

Ryan Rice, one of the co-curators of the event, says it was inspired by the tourism industry in the region — and the landscape itself.

"Visiting Bonavista and the peninsula, thinking about why people come here, what people do and how they interact. And reverting back to the original host, which is the land and water and building from there," he said.

One of the interesting features of the region is the interplay between history and hospitality, said Rice, who pointed out that many historic locations and structures are being maintained by the hospitality industry as bed and breakfasts or attractions.

"We're thinking about the resources, thinking about histories, thinking about our relations to land and water … and actually thinking about hospitality," he said.

A host on the coast

Biennale executive director Sue Balint says there are 23 art projects in this year's festival and different ways to experience it all. 

"Some people plan their trip, right? Their journey around the peninsula. Other people happen upon an individual work out in the natural landscape and say, 'What's going on here?' And then they go, 'Oh, there's a thing called the biennale and there are more projects underway."

Things kicked off Saturday with Sturgeon Woman Rising, an art piece in Elliston by Lindsay Katsitsakaste Delaronde, a Kanienke'haka artist and performer from Kahnawà:ke, near Montreal. 

Inuk artist Billy Gauthier was commissioned by the biennale to produce a new sculpture. 

For Gauthier, the theme of host began as a broad one, so he had to narrow it down and decide what he wanted to represent, but he became inspired by his subject.

"The ultimate host is, of course, the Earth," says Gauthier. 

"She's the host for all of us, for every single bit of life on this planet. So she's what we need to take care of, you know? Mother Earth is incredibly, incredibly important. And there's nothing bigger, nothing more worth protecting."

Gauthier will be carving into a massive fin whale skull over the course of seven days, a creative marathon he says is unlike anything he's attempted.

"This is probably the most difficult thing I've ever done," he said.

"Well, at least next to, as some people might know, a hunger strike that myself and a couple of others went on a few years ago."

Gauthier, along with two others, went without food for 13 days in 2016 over the risk of methylmercury contamination due to the Muskrat Falls reservoir. 

"This is right up next to it for difficulty, I got to say," he said.

"It's been incredible but tough and exciting and everything."

The Bonavista Biennale will be running across the Bonavista Peninsula until Sept. 17.

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