Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area (CAFKA) is celebrating its 25th anniversary this autumn with an assortment of events, workshops and talks.
On Sept. 12, 2026, CAFKA is presenting an interactive workshop as part of CreekFest ’26 with the artist Bianca Daniela Nachtman, titled Down by the Creek: Reflect, Receive, Return.
Two popular artworks from CAFKA exhibition history are being reconstructed. The first, Telephone Booth, by David Jensenius, is being shown at Saint Anne’s Church in Little Portugal, Toronto. The second, ARENA, by Benoît Maubrey—a small amphitheatre of 320 recycled loudspeakers where anyone can connect and play their chosen audio—is being reconstructed in Carl Zehr Square as part of Ontario Culture Days.
2024 Kitchener artist-in-residence Ellie Anglin is working on a zine that highlights work from across CAFKA’s 25 years. A panel on censorship and free speech in art is being planned.
On Sept. 16, CAFKA will host a party in celebration of their anniversary at Willow River Park Pavilion from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. CAFKA director Julie Hall elaborated that the event would involve food, refreshments and all things CAFKA.
“We might do an astrological chart of CAFKA, have birthday cake. I’m trying to put together little gifts for people that have been CAFKA contributors over the years,” Hall said.
Over the past 25 years, CAFKA has represented over 350 artists and collectives, and displayed over 500 individual installations.
Hall explained how CAFKA first developed out of a mid-1990s Kitchener art project.
“CAFKA grew out of this City of Kitchener project led by and founded by local artists called Artworks, where City Hall became this site for both artistic creation and connecting with the community,” Hall said.
“It was basically an ‘artist at work’ type of thing, an open studio using public space.”
The first official CAFKA exhibition followed in 2001.
Hall described what changed in the Canadian arts world in the quarter-century since CAFKA began. It is difficult for local cultural events to stand out and as the media landscape has become overwhelmed, local culture can often become obscured.
“It’s like we’re oversaturated, but we feel like we have nothing to do. There’s so much going on, but we can’t find out about it […] We’re inundated with global information, but reading a local paper, knowing about the events happening around you locally, is harder to do somehow,” Hall said.
Funding has also become more precarious in the past few years, as foundations have become less welcoming to unsolicited applicants and government arts funding has stagnated.
“We need to do more with less every year, which feels impossible when your free resources are eroding,”
Development for the CAFKA.27 biennial is well underway. The biennial’s theme is ‘Counter Current’, drawing upon water imagery and “what it means to move against cultural tides.”
Hall stressed how this theme relates to the KW region.
“Water is on the mind as the community expands, and our water resources have to be adapted, amidst this ‘one million neighbours by 2050’ thing. That’s something underlying the theme,” Hall said.
CAFKA.27 will open on June 5, 2027. Hall was pleased to note this coincides with the opening of the Liverpool and Helsinki art biennials.
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