Fogo Island Arts
Fogo Island Arts (FIA) is a residency-based contemporary art venue for artists, designers, writers, filmmakers, musicians, curators, and thinkers from around the world. Artists come to Fogo Island for periods of time ranging from several weeks to several months to engage in research and production, and selected artists are invited to present their work at the Fogo Island Gallery, located in the Fogo Island Inn. Artists-in-residence are invited or selected through a juried open call process, and Fogo Island Arts as a program benefits from the guidance of its Advisory Board.
Fogo Island Arts
Fogo Island Arts (FIA) is a residency-based contemporary art venue for artists, designers, writers, filmmakers, musicians, curators, and thinkers from around the world. Artists come to Fogo Island for periods of time ranging from several weeks to several months to engage in research and production, and selected artists are invited to present their work at the Fogo Island Gallery, located in the Fogo Island Inn. Artists-in-residence are invited or selected through a juried open call process, and Fogo Island Arts as a program benefits from the guidance of its Advisory Board.
Fogo Island Arts is one of the founding initiatives of Shorefast and was conceived as a continuation of Fogo Island’s deep-rooted relationship with art. In the 1960s and 70s, art, in the form of the National Film Board’s Challenge for Change program, helped to save Fogo Island from resettlement by helping to promote cooperation in this place of distinct, largely isolated communities. A participatory project that used film as an instigator of social change, Challenge for Change led to the hugely influential Fogo Process films, which documented Fogo Islanders’ way of life and shared concerns, empowering communities to act together to determine their future.
Building on this legacy, Fogo Island Arts was established in 2008 and constitutes one of Shorefast's major projects, along with the Fogo Island Inn, that were conceived as part of a holistic set of initiatives. The artists and the artistic production within Fogo Island Arts have helped Shorefast to “live in the questions” while realizing our work on Fogo Island, and to employ art as a way of asking, knowing, and belonging.
Today, Fogo Island Arts welcomes exceptional emerging and established contemporary artists from around the globe. Fogo Island Arts builds on the resourcefulness and creativity of Fogo Islanders, whose lived experiences provide a vital framework for the organization’s activities. FIA hosts events and artist talks on Fogo Island for community members and visitors alike, and presents programs and exhibitions outside of Fogo Island as part of its international outreach.
By facilitating collaborations, connections, and relationships between emerging and renowned artists, curators, scholars and the public at large, Fogo Island Arts seeks to contribute to conversations around local and global issues of concern. The ideas that emerge from FIA’s thoughtful dialogues and interactions with a national and international network of thinkers and practitioners might provide relevant insights towards questions of human relationships with place, nature, financial capital, and one another.
To learn more, visit fogoislandarts.ca
New Ocean Ethic
The New Ocean Ethic is a series of initiatives organized around creating a higher fidelity relationship with our oceans. For centuries, Fogo Islanders have lived in concert with the sea – a delicate and tenuous relationship that oscillates between harmony and dissonance, but is ultimately and always defined by reverence. The New Ocean Ethic is led by Gordon Slade, C.M., and helps to remind us that if we are to continue to benefit from our relationship with the sea, we must rethink the way we use its resources and exist responsibly on its shores. All New Ocean Ethic projects to date are outlined in the Shorefast 2018 New Ocean Ethic Booklet.
New Ocean Ethic
The New Ocean Ethic is a series of initiatives organized around creating a higher fidelity relationship with our oceans. For centuries, Fogo Islanders have lived in concert with the sea – a delicate and tenuous relationship that oscillates between harmony and dissonance, but is ultimately and always defined by reverence. The New Ocean Ethic is led by Gordon Slade, C.M., and helps to remind us that if we are to continue to benefit from our relationship with the sea, we must rethink the way we use its resources and exist responsibly on its shores. All New Ocean Ethic projects to date are outlined in the Shorefast 2018 New Ocean Ethic Booklet.
Through its projects, the New Ocean Ethic aims to establish Fogo Island as a global leader of communities seeking a sustainable and respectful partnership with the world’s oceans. The people of Fogo Island and the neighbouring Change Islands have a centuries-long connection to the sea, built up over generations of an inshore, small boat fishery and lives lived at the edge of the North American continent. In the mid-twentieth century, overfishing by factory trawlers caused a dramatic decline in the cod stocks, bringing a centuries-old way of living to the brink of extinction. Though a moratorium on cod fishing was declared in 1992, the inshore fishery had suffered to the point of collapse decades earlier. Fogo Islanders adapted their equipment and knowledge to fish for other species such as crab, shrimp and turbot, but the memory of the loss of the traditional fishery combined with the contemporary threat of climate change serve as a constant reminder to respect our oceans’ generous yet finite gifts.
As detailed in the Shorefast 2018 New Ocean Ethic Booklet, achievements of the program include the Canada Ocean Lecture Series in partnership with Simon Fraser University, an Island-wide plastic bag ban, and the implementation of cod potting on Fogo Island: a revolutionary and completely sustainable way of fishing for cod that has minimal environmental impact, no by-catch, and yields a superior product, cod-pot-cod.
Geology at the Edge
Fogo Island is a geologist’s dream. With hundreds of millions of years of geological history below our feet, and as one of the few places in the world where the entirety of a magma chamber can be observed, we knew we had to find ways to share the fascinating geology of this place with practitioners, researchers, and community members. Shorefast's Geology at the Edge geologist-in-residence program, led by geologist Paul Dean, is Canada’s first community-based geology program.
Geology at the Edge
Fogo Island is a geologist’s dream. With hundreds of millions of years of geological history below our feet, and as one of the few places in the world where the entirety of a magma chamber can be observed, we knew we had to find ways to share the fascinating geology of this place with practitioners, researchers, and community members. Shorefast's Geology at the Edge geologist-in-residence program, led by geologist Paul Dean, is Canada’s first community-based geology program.
Under the GatE program, prominent geologists with varying specialties come to Fogo Island for periods ranging from a few weeks to a few months. They perform research, lead geology walks, and make public presentations in the Fogo Island Inn cinema that are always well-attended by guests and community members alike.
In July 2017, Shorefast and the Geology at the Edge program were proud to open the Fogo Island Geology Centre in the community of Shoal Bay. Located in the former St. Simon’s church, the renovation and repurposing of this historic building was made possible by the generous contribution of Husky Energy. In addition to hosting a permanent collection of geological specimens, maps, and interactive learning materials, the Centre will serve as a venue for exciting geology programming including youth workshops, lectures, and special events.
Academic Residencies
Fogo Island is a place teeming with natural and cultural heritage. We are rich in the songs, stories, and traditions passed along through the generations of lives lived as people of the sea, with roots going back centuries to the first English and Irish settlers who came for cod, and stayed for the cod. But there are many things that we still just don’t know. To help build on our knowledge, Shorefast has created a series of academic residencies to bring experts in various fields to Fogo Island.
Building on the history of Memorial University of Newfoundland’s extension service and the longstanding relationship between Shorefast and the University, we created an academics-in-residence program in 2016. A yearly cohort of academic fellows is able to visit Fogo Island for periods of several weeks to engage in research, interact with the community, and share their knowledge.
Academic Residencies
Fogo Island is a place teeming with natural and cultural heritage. We are rich in the songs, stories, and traditions passed along through the generations of lives lived as people of the sea, with roots going back centuries to the first English and Irish settlers who came for cod, and stayed for the cod. But there are many things that we still just don’t know. To help build on our knowledge, Shorefast has created a series of academic residencies to bring experts in various fields to Fogo Island.
Building on the history of Memorial University of Newfoundland’s extension service and the longstanding relationship between Shorefast and the University, we created an academics-in-residence program in 2016. A yearly cohort of academic fellows is able to visit Fogo Island for periods of several weeks to engage in research, interact with the community, and share their knowledge.
Microlending
Business is a tool that belongs to all of us. It is a means to develop the capacities inherent in people and communities, to generate employment, and to generate meaningful connections between people and places. Modelled after the Nobel-prize winning Grameen Bank, the Shorefast Business Assistance Fund provides micro-loans on friendly terms to those seeking to start businesses on Fogo Island. Thus far, the Fund has extended loans to a diverse set of successful businesses on the Island, and continues to accept applications for funding.
Microlending
Business is a tool that belongs to all of us. It is a means to develop the capacities inherent in people and communities, to generate employment, and to generate meaningful connections between people and places. Modelled after the Nobel-prize winning Grameen Bank, the Shorefast Business Assistance Fund provides micro-loans on friendly terms to those seeking to start businesses on Fogo Island. Thus far, the Fund has extended loans to a diverse set of successful businesses on the Island, and continues to accept applications for funding.
Residents of Fogo Island and Change Islands who are interested in applying for a friendly loan under the Shorefast Business Assistance Fund should first read Shorefast Business Assistance Fund Information. The Business Assistance Fund application form can be found here.
Boatbuilding
For centuries, small wooden boats have been an essential part of the social and economic fabric of rural Newfoundland. These boats have played an irreplaceable role in outport life and have constituted the backbone of our fisheries: the only way we made a living for generations.
Before the development of roads, traveling by water was the only way to move from one community to another. In bays and coves around the province, all sizes and designs of boats took people to their fishing grounds, to the cottage hospitals, to the homes of friends and relatives, and to the larger mercantile centres. Life lived between wind and water was dependent on these wooden boats and the skill required to make them.
Boatbuilding
For centuries, small wooden boats have been an essential part of the social and economic fabric of rural Newfoundland. These boats have played an irreplaceable role in outport life and have constituted the backbone of our fisheries: the only way we made a living for generations.
Before the development of roads, traveling by water was the only way to move from one community to another. In bays and coves around the province, all sizes and designs of boats took people to their fishing grounds, to the cottage hospitals, to the homes of friends and relatives, and to the larger mercantile centres. Life lived between wind and water was dependent on these wooden boats and the skill required to make them.
Boats were built using methods handed down the family line. The skills of master boat builders were well known and greatly admired, and others were eager to learn their coveted methods. Community-specific boat building practices emerged based on the social, economic, and natural characteristics of a given place.
Sadly, in recent decades, those skills and abilities have been lost to many communities in the province. Modern construction materials and techniques, the collapse of the inshore fishery, the decline in rural communities, and the outward migration of younger generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans have all contributed to the erosion of traditional wooden boat building skills. As a result, there are very few communities today that are recognized for maintaining their traditional boat building heritage.
Shorefast is committed to ensuring that Fogo Island’s boat building heritage is not lost, but is rather celebrated and lifted towards contemporary relevance. Fogo Island and our neighbouring Change Islands are well known for their fine boat building techniques, and today we are reviving and preserving this history. We have created a heritage collection of our traditional wooden boats, the punts, and we are involved in a variety of activities that support traditional boat building projects and skill transfer. Shorefast began a ground-breaking boat building program with students and staff at the local high school, and started The Great Fogo Island Punt Race to There and Back, a yearly race on the open ocean.
Our latest initiative in support of the wooden punt is the restoration of a traditional fishing premises in Joe Batt’s Arm which dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. Donated to Shorefast in 2015, the property includes a traditional family house, two lofts, a fishing stage, and a new floating dock to launch and haul up punts. This historic site will become the Fogo Island Punt Centre, and will serve as a year-round community gathering space, a boatbuilding educational centre, and the home base for community punt races.
The Punt Centre will house our punt collection and will bring our maritime history alive through direct interaction with this heritage; it will bring our punts and all their associated skills and traditions together as a living, breathing, and publicly accessible place for both residents and visitors alike.
Vernacular Architecture
Fogo Island has a rich vernacular architecture, built up over the centuries to support and sustain the livelihoods and aesthetic expressions of people who are inextricably tied up with the sea. Newfoundland’s outport settlers were not permitted to build permanent structures or dwellings when they originally came from Europe to fish our waters. Prohibited from taking up permanent residence, our ancestors were always expected to eventually return home to England or Ireland. This led to the creation of buildings that were made of wood as opposed to stone, and that rested lightly on landscape by making use of stilt wood legs – called shores – rather than fixed foundations. Buildings were designed to be simple and economical, and serve their exact intended purpose, nothing more and nothing less.
Vernacular Architecture
Fogo Island has a rich vernacular architecture, built up over the centuries to support and sustain the livelihoods and aesthetic expressions of people who are inextricably tied up with the sea. Newfoundland’s outport settlers were not permitted to build permanent structures or dwellings when they originally came from Europe to fish our waters. Prohibited from taking up permanent residence, our ancestors were always expected to eventually return home to England or Ireland. This led to the creation of buildings that were made of wood as opposed to stone, and that rested lightly on landscape by making use of stilt wood legs – called shores – rather than fixed foundations. Buildings were designed to be simple and economical, and serve their exact intended purpose, nothing more and nothing less.
The wooden structures of Fogo Island have withstood the harshest Northeast gales and year after year of the rain, snow, and ice that accompany our stronger seasons. The good news? Salt air preserves, and there is a lot of life left in even the most neglected of buildings in our community.
Shorefast has invested in restoring a number of heritage homes, churches, and public buildings in order to preserve Fogo Island’s distinct built heritage and give these structures continued relevance through continued use. We believe that holding on to the vernacular is critically important because buildings have a key role to play in helping us hold onto and stay in relationship with the past. A meaningful relationship with the past is a critical source of knowledge for the present, as our role in the present is to mediate the relationship between the past and the future.
Geotourism
Geotourism is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the distinctive geographical character of a place—its environment, heritage, aesthetics, culture, and the well-being of its residents. Shorefast is committed to upholding the tenets of geotourism such that the best interests of Fogo Island’s natural environment, cultural legacy, people, and communities serve as our most important guideposts.
The Fogo Island Inn stands as Shorefast’s major geotourism project on Fogo Island. Our Inn is more than just an inn: it has a social, cultural, and economic purpose.
Geotourism
Geotourism is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the distinctive geographical character of a place—its environment, heritage, aesthetics, culture, and the well-being of its residents. Shorefast is committed to upholding the tenets of geotourism such that the best interests of Fogo Island’s natural environment, cultural legacy, people, and communities serve as our most important guideposts.
The Fogo Island Inn stands as Shorefast’s major geotourism project on Fogo Island. Our Inn is more than just an inn: it has a social, cultural, and economic purpose.
A social business, the Inn’s primary purpose is to provide meaningful, dignified employment to Fogo Islanders and build another leg on the Island’s economy which is still reliant on the ever-important fishery. The people of Fogo Island are genetically predisposed to exceptional hospitality, and the Inn builds upon this inherent skill.
The Inn acts as a vessel to hold onto that which is most important: the natural and cultural heritage of this place. It places visitors and hosts in respectful relationship with one another, allowing for the thoughtful exchange of ideas and experiences. And most importantly, the Inn misses no opportunity to showcase the richness of Fogo Island: every detail has been meticulously considered, and no rock, literal or metaphorical, has been left unturned in pursuit of upholding the best interests of our guests, our staff, and this place.
Quickly garnering an international reputation for excellence in hospitality since opening in mid-2013, the Inn and the place-centric values it projects have frequently left guests feeling “given back to themselves.” Often noting that they were treated as family by Inn staff, our guests remind us that genuine hospitality entails nothing less than the love of a stranger.
Economic Development Partnership
The Fogo Island Economic Development Partnership was formed in 2015 as a joint venture among the 3 leading economic and social organizations on Fogo Island; Shorefast, the Fogo Island Co-operative Society Limited, and the Town of Fogo Island. Incorporated in May 2017, this innovative partnership brings together public and private on-Island leadership in a close collaboration to encourage and facilitate economic development on Fogo Island.
Economic Development Partnership
The Fogo Island Economic Development Partnership was formed in 2015 as a joint venture among the 3 leading economic and social organizations on Fogo Island; Shorefast, the Fogo Island Co-operative Society Limited, and the Town of Fogo Island. Incorporated in May 2017, this innovative partnership brings together public and private on-Island leadership in a close collaboration to encourage and facilitate economic development on Fogo Island.
Through the creation, promotion, and support of small and medium-sized businesses, particularly those that build on our natural and cultural assets, the Fogo Island Economic Development Partnership will endeavor to create jobs, encourage youth ventures, and foster a unified economic vision for Fogo Island as our small island finds its path forward. Shorefast believes that by working together with the Co-op and the Town, we as an island community will be better able to tackle challenges and opportunities holistically, in order to maximize community benefit.
Social
Businesses
Fogo Island Inn
Fogo Island Inn was a direct response to a pressing need to find new relevance for traditional knowledge and traditional ways. The Inn was created as an economic engine for Fogo Island and has provided new employment opportunities that build off of Fogo Islanders’ natural predisposition towards exceptional hospitality.
Fogo Island Inn is a 100% social business: it was built using philanthropic funds and all surpluses are returned to Shorefast for reinvestment in the community of Fogo Island. There are no investors seeking a return, and there is no private gain.
Fogo Island Inn
Fogo Island Inn was a direct response to a pressing need to find new relevance for traditional knowledge and traditional ways. The Inn was created as an economic engine for Fogo Island and has provided new employment opportunities that build off of Fogo Islanders’ natural predisposition towards exceptional hospitality.
Fogo Island Inn is a 100% social business: it was built using philanthropic funds and all surpluses are returned to Shorefast for reinvestment in the community of Fogo Island. There are no investors seeking a return, and there is no private gain.
Our unique model means that the community of Fogo Island as a whole is the beneficial owner of Fogo Island Inn, and all decisions made about the Inn, from its original conception to its hiring practices and procurement standards, have been made through a place-specific lens. No opportunity was missed to put Fogo Island in the details – to put love in the details.
Commissioned by Shorefast and designed by Newfoundland-born-and-raised architect Todd Saunders, the Inn has quickly garnered an international reputation for exceptional, embodied, place-specific hospitality and bold, thoughtful, humanistic contemporary design. When commissioned to design the Fogo Island Inn, Todd was tasked with creating a unique geotourism destination that retained the richness of outport Newfoundland traditions while also speaking the visual language of modern contemporary design. Simply, the goal was to “find new ways with old things” in order to both preserve and stimulate cultural production on Fogo Island and to create restorative spaces for guests who come to the Inn for refuge from the noisy, busy storms of modernity.
This marriage of old and new was ultimately achieved through a holistic and open-hearted journey that involved local makers and artisans working with architects and international designers from away. Stylistically, the interiors of the Inn continue the theme of incorporating the traditional with the contemporary: building on the legacy of local craft traditions, nearly all of the furniture and textiles in the Inn were handcrafted by local craftspeople in conjunction with the designs of an international roster of visiting designers. The result is that every detail feels distinctly of this place, from the locally-sourced materials and colour palette down to the inspirations that lie behind each furniture object, wallpaper pattern, and lighting fixture.
The Fogo Island Inn stands out on Fogo Island, yet it remains distinctly of this place. In a time when rural communities struggle for relevance and even survival, Fogo Island Inn was an opportunity to use design as a means of fortifying culture and place, while at the same time enhancing the economic prospects for this singular island community. With a time horizon of at least one hundred years built into our vision for the Fogo Island Inn, we know we won’t be here to meet and love every single guest that ever walks through its doors. But if we keep our sights keenly trained on the Inn’s mission to build another leg on our economy and provide sustainable, meaningful employment that allows this rural community to thrive, we can know that other Fogo Islanders will.
The Long Bench, designed for The Woodshop on Fogo Island by Ineke Hans
The Woodshop on Fogo Island
Furniture is an important part of the language and expression of a particular place and time and can connect communities in a powerful and unmediated way. Walter Peddle said it best when he noted how “outport furniture clearly reveals that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians admirably managed to eke out a living in a context where they simply had to be resourceful, have great stamina, and the courage to persevere in the face of seemingly endless adversity. Most importantly, they succeeded in doing so while retaining a sense of humour and a great capacity for sensitivity and warmth.”
The Woodshop on Fogo Island
Furniture is an important part of the language and expression of a particular place and time and can connect communities in a powerful and unmediated way. Walter Peddle said it best when he noted how “outport furniture clearly reveals that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians admirably managed to eke out a living in a context where they simply had to be resourceful, have great stamina, and the courage to persevere in the face of seemingly endless adversity. Most importantly, they succeeded in doing so while retaining a sense of humour and a great capacity for sensitivity and warmth.”
The furniture of the The Woodshop on Fogo Island honours and embodies this history, and is the result of an innovative collaborative process between artists and designers from away and skilled rural artisans from Fogo Island, Newfoundland. The collection embodies a new kind of a “luxury”: one that values craft and storytelling, and delves beyond the surface of beauty to help us meaningfully connect with the objects we choose to share our lives with. Contemporary designers worked side-by-side with the craftspeople of Fogo Island to create furniture and textiles that embodied a “new outport aesthetic;” weaving the new from the fabric of the old and employing traditional skills, tools, and materials to create pieces that speak both the languages of the past and the present. The objects conceived during this process were used within the Fogo Island Inn, but they so delighted the Inn’s guests that we created The Woodshop on Fogo Island. The Woodshop is housed in the recently renovated Society of United Fishermen’s Hall in the community of Barr’d Islands, and employs woodworkers year-round who cut, nail, glue, sand, finish, and paint every item by hand. The Woodshop’s employment of local makers and artisans contributes to the promotion of economic resiliency for one of Canada’s oldest settlements. The Woodshop on Fogo Island is a Shorefast social business. All of our products are priced to create a 15% net surplus, 100% of which is returned back to Shorefast to support ongoing charitable programs on Fogo Island.
Fogo Island Fish
In Newfoundland, when we say fish, we mean cod. Fishing for cod has sustained Fogo Islanders for centuries, and ours is the very best fish in the world. During the mid-twentieth century, factory-scale overfishing caused the cod stocks to plummet, bringing the species to the brink of ecological extinction and destroying a generations-old way of life nearly overnight. A moratorium on cod fishing was declared in 1992. In recent years, the inshore cod stocks have been strong and the fishers of Fogo Island have been catching small quotas of this cod each year. Here, fishing is inextricably tied with our family life, culture, and our economy, and the method preferred by local fishers to catch their family’s supply of fish is, and has always been, the traditional single hook and line.
Fogo Island is now in the privileged position to offer this hand-lined cod to high-end, ethically-focused restaurants, and we created Fogo Island Fish to facilitate this path-forging exchange.
Fogo Island Fish
In Newfoundland, when we say fish, we mean cod. Fishing for cod has sustained Fogo Islanders for centuries, and ours is the very best fish in the world. During the mid-twentieth century, factory-scale overfishing caused the cod stocks to plummet, bringing the species to the brink of ecological extinction and destroying a generations-old way of life nearly overnight. A moratorium on cod fishing was declared in 1992. In recent years, the inshore cod stocks have been strong and the fishers of Fogo Island have been catching small quotas of this cod each year. Here, fishing is inextricably tied with our family life, culture, and our economy, and the method preferred by local fishers to catch their family’s supply of fish is, and has always been, the traditional single hook and line.
Fogo Island is now in the privileged position to offer this hand-lined cod to high-end, ethically-focused restaurants, and we created Fogo Island Fish to facilitate this path-forging exchange.
The goal of Fogo Island Fish is to provide the very best product while at the same time significantly increasing the price that fishers are paid for their catch. Fogo Island Fish is a Shorefast social business and 100% of its surpluses from operation are redirected to the Foundation to support Shorefast’s ongoing economic development projects and charitable initiatives on Fogo Island.
Fogo Island Fish only catches in the fall, when the fish is at its physiological peak. Unlike industrial fishing, hand line fishing creates zero by-catch and minimal environmental impact. Our fish are bled at sea, gutted, washed with sea water, and stored on ice. We catch within 5 miles of the coast of Fogo Island, in view of home just like our ancestors, allowing processing within hours. We preserve local jobs by working with the community-owned Fogo Island Co-operative Society, Ltd., who fillet, debone, and flash freeze our product to ensure maximum freshness. Fewer hands touch the fish from the water to the plate, ensuring high quality of production and also the highest financial return for our fishers; the lack of intermediaries and exceptionality of the finished product enables us to pay them well in excess of the market rate.
Fogo Island Fish is a staple in the award-winning culinary creations of the Fogo Island Inn, and is currently featured in fine-dining restaurants in Toronto and Ottawa. Our unique process was the subject of a National Film Board (NFB) documentary, Hand.Line.Cod,which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2016.