The 2025 Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener + Area (CAFKA) biennial, titled Field Guide to the Understory, is running from June 7 to July 26.
CAFKA.25 presents original artwork from nineteen artists, displayed in public spaces across the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge—with additional video and performance art featured at events throughout the exhibition run.
The thematic explores the notion of public space, microhabitats, thriving under the shadow of business high-rises.
“CAFKA.25 draws inspiration from the intricate ecosystems of the forest understory, where life flourishes in the fleeting glow of dappled light and where intricate microhabitats thrive in the shadow of giants,” the website states.
“CAFKA.25 is about the underdog, what’s happening on the forest floor…The Field Guide is scrappy, it’s responsive, it’s a little notebook in your breast pocket…[It is] using what’s available to you and interfacing regularly with the unseen aspects of material reality,” Hall said.
Unlike other exhibitions, CAFKA commissions brand new work from its artists. The process is collaborative, with CAFKA scoping out the conceptual and financial feasibility of projects throughout the process.
While previous biennials have had pre-set thematics, CAFKA.25’s was drawn together organically from the resonances in participating artist’s work.
CAFKA.25 artwork includes the rain remembers its life as sea, a sonic composition by naakita f.k performed by a local chorus and The Landscape is Dead, a series of billboards exploring urban decay and uncultivated land by Richelle Forsey and Anna Gaby-Trotz.
One striking work—Monument (Sundial), a sculpture composed from compressed recycled materials by award-winning artist Adam Basanta—stands tall in Willow River Park.
CAFKA’s ethos is about making art as publicly accessible to people as possible, Hall explained. For them, the capacity of public art to move and provoke reflection has a personal dimension.
Hall, who comes from an engineering background, went into sculpture after a profound experience attending Halifax’s Nocturne festival.
“I remember attending [Nocturne], and it changed me. It literally made me want to leave my science life and pursue art[…] So, the idea of CAFKA, taking work out of the gallery and putting it in places where people can encounter it by accident, is super exciting.”
CAFKA began as a Kitchener city project called artworks in the late 1990s. While CAFKA has since expanded to involve Waterloo and Cambridge, Kitchener remains the focus.
Walking tours of the downtown Kitchener artworks are taking place throughout the biennial, with plans for a walking tour designed to accommodate a broader range of mobility needs. Ultimately however, Hall’s preference is for people to explore the artwork with a totally open mind, without guides or context.
“The most exciting thing is when people just encounter an artwork with little to no explanation and immerse themselves, figure out that it’s CAFKA, and then reach out, have a conversation with us,” they said.
The CAFKA team is already working towards the 2027 biennial.
For the 2025 biennial, there are numerous events planned for July, including talks with exhibiting artists, workshops, and a screening series of video artwork in the final week.
The biennial concludes on July 26 with a planned closing forum in Galt. An essay-based publication on Field Guide, written by the biennial’s writers-in-residence, is planned for the fall.
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