Fogo Island Arts

01/16/2025

Join us tonight at the Punt Premises in Joe Batt’s Arm for Maker’s Night! Bring a project or just come for a cup of tea.

MAKERS' NIGHT
Thursday, January 16 | 7-9PM
Punt Premises

The cure to winter blues? Getting together with crafty folk to draw, paint, knit, crochet, collage, and make something that warms the soul. Join us this Thursday for another cozy Makers' Night at the Punt Premises.

12/20/2024

Our curator-in-residence Leo Cocar’s talk is now available to view online (link in bio). .cocar is the recipient of 2024’s Young Curator Residency. 
During his talk, Leo presented research on his future work with Derya Akay at the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (.moca). 

Leo Cocar is a cultural worker from the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. His writing has appeared in Flash, e-flux, Bomb, C Magazine, Momus, and Numéro Berlin, among others. He holds a BA from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Curatorial Studies from Bard.

12/10/2024

📢 Calling all Newfoundland and Labrador based artists! 📢

We’re now accepting applications for FIA’s inaugural Newfoundland and Labrador Artist Residency.

Application Deadline: January 6, 2025

Applications are welcome from contemporary artists currently living and working in Newfoundland and Labrador full time. Artists and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines including visual art, film, new media, arts writing, curating, architecture, and design are all eligible to apply. The residency is six to eight weeks in length and will take place from May – June, 2025.

Details here: www.fogoislandarts.ca/call-for-applications-nl-artist-residency/

This new residency is generously supported by anonymous donors.

Photos by Justin Parsons.

12/07/2024

and founder Zita Cobb is the keynote speaker today at the CIMAM annual conference, Sustainable Futures. FIA’s Strategic Director Kitty Scott is board member of CIMAM and has been part of this year’s planning committee.

12/03/2024

This , you can enable artists, curators, and writers to have an experience like no other, spending time creating and reflecting in the unique culture and landscape of Fogo Island. Every act of generosity counts. Support our work at the link in bio.

At , we believe the best way to make the world better is to start at home. Over 20 years, we’ve fuelled economic momentum at home and inspired global change. One of our founding initiatives is – a program that laid the foundation of our work with artists and ideas. We believe that artists play a vital role in the urgent conversations of our time, today more than ever. Based on an island off an island in the Labrador Current, our residencies offer an extraordinary context for discovery, curiosity and space for understanding new perspectives. Join us!

11/27/2024

We wrap up the 2024 residency season with our final artist-in-residence, Mooni Perry. is a visual artist based in Berlin and Seoul. She is a co-founder of , and a recipient of the 2021 Ars Viva prize, Kulturkreis der deutchen Wirtschaft im BDI.

Working primarily in video, Perry’s research-based practice interrogates the relationship between technological innovations and speculative futures. Her recent project explores and redefines the realm of East Asian science fiction. Grounded in ancient East Asian cosmologies, shamanism, folk practices and philosophies, Perry’s work reveals a rupture with Western interpretations and offers an estranged, yet deeper understanding of the complexities of human experience in our contemporary global landscape.

Image 2: Installation view of Missings: From Baikal to Heaven Lake, From Manchuria to Kailong Temple (2024), Westfälischer Kunstverein.

Image 3: Film Still from Binlang Xishi Chapter 1, 2020-21, 3 Channel video_4K, VHS, 8/16mm, Stereo.

Image 3: Film still from And They Begged Repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss, 2019, Single channel video, 17:36 min, stereo sound with 4 CRT monitors.

11/21/2024

A look back at FIA's residency in its early days, and a beautiful memory of Silke Otto Knapp, a prolific artist who was a dear friend to our program and to many in the Fogo Island community.

These artist studios on Fogo Island are modern, ecologically sound and creative spaces complimenting the incredible surrounding architecture of ocean, rock a...

11/18/2024

Our residencies enable artists, curators, and writers to think, create, and connect on Fogo Island. The geographic specificity as an island off an island in the North Atlantic is a foundational platform for engagement around issues of sustainability, ecology, economy, and belonging. With four unique studios designed by architect , artists are immersed in Fogo Island’s landscape and communities.
 
Photos: Tower studio, photographer ; Squish Studio, and Long Studio, photographer ; Bridge Studio, photographer

11/18/2024

Come out to the Punt Premises in Joe Batt's Arm on Thursday evening with a creative project of any kind!

Building on the momentum of the Makers Night that Union House Arts brought to Fogo Island in September, we have decided to continue these events through the Fall and Winter. Bring your painting, knitting, embroidery, collage or any other in-progress project and join us for a cozy evening of creativity in the Punt Premises!

MAKERS' NIGHT
Thursday, November 21 | 7-9 PM
Punt Premises

Good news! Following the success of our last Makers' Night, Fogo Island Arts has decided to make it a regular event throughout fall and winter.

Bring any work-in-progress, or start something new, and join us for a cozy night of creativity. All crafts welcome—from painting and knitting to collage and rug hooking!

11/08/2024

Gathering around food was an integral and special part of our inaugural Shore Time. Opening night, we held a Cold Plate Community Supper - a staple in outport Newfoundland celebrations, traditionally consisting of various types of potato salad, meat, and veggies. The second night was a Food Fishery Circle where  executive chef ; Owner and Operator of a 5th generation family fishing enterprise, Glen Best; Food Historian-In-Residence ;  Shorefast Director of Foodways and , CEO of Teem Fish monitoring Inc. reflected on the impact cod on local culture and global food systems. The menu of fish cakes and fish and brewis, all made with locally caught hand-line cod, was catered by Norm Foley.  During our Supper Salon on our final night, we adapted our food offerings to the climate crisis using guidelines by CLIMAVORE, a research platform and agency founded by artists in residence . We hope to see you at our table at the next Shore Time in 2026!
 
(image credits)
Image 1,2:
Image 3:

10/30/2024

TALK WITH CURATOR LEO COCAR
Saturday, November 9 | 12 PM
Punt Premises, Joe Batt’s Arm

We’re thrilled to have Leo Cocar in residence as the recipient of this year’s Hnatyshyn Foundation - Fondation Hnatyshyn Young Curator Residency!

During his talk, Leo will present the research that has been informing his future work with Derya Akay at the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art, MA.

Mobilizing (loose) interpretations of writing by philosopher Reza Negarastani, artist Cildo Meireles' work Insertions Into Ideological Circuits, and Theodor Adorno's writings on aesthetics (among others), this presentation will take the form of ruminations on the ways in which art objects (and exhibitions) may use alternate modes of socio-communal engagement (beyond the rarefied art world) as a means of breaking out of narrow arenas of both conceptualization and display.

Leo Cocar is a cultural worker from the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. His writing has appeared in Flash, e-flux, Bomb, C Magazine, Momus, and Numéro Berlin, among others. He was the 2024 Fogo Island Young Arts Curator and holds a BA from the University of British Columbia and an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

10/30/2024

10/24/2024

Congratulations to FIA alum Abbas Akhavan, who will represent Canada at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. Abbas has had a long relationship with Fogo Island – it is a place that has deeply impacted his work, and in turn, has impacted ours. Abbas’ first visit to Fogo Island was in 2013 for a residency. He returned to the island again in 2016, and in 2019 he presented a site-specific exhibition and outdoor installation, “a script for an island,” at the Fogo Island Gallery. Drawing on oblique references to the island’s vernacular architecture of fishing stages and saltbox houses, the constructs of theatre, religion and gardens, the exhibition opened a field of enquiry into how we gather as a community and the shared symbols that bind us as a culture.

Abbas’ own writing about Fogo Island is personal and profoundly apt. He has generously permitted us to share an excerpt here:

this place. never felt smaller and more significant. some days my eyes feel fatigued by this landscape. textures i cannot understand, colours I’ve never seen before (despite having been here three times)… a suffering i am willing to endure.
anyway - while here i am trying to not give any significance to my thoughts, better yet abandon all thinking as it always leads to some form of domesticating or narration used as a
coping mechanism to deal with all of... this.
rather
to just linger
as
an event rather than a subject.
that studio, as a potential or a piece of architecture, is derailing and nourishes in ways, ways beyond words.
as is this landscape. it takes time. a lot of time. but it also makes time and gives time.
it acts like a filter - keeping things of matter close and things that matter real close.

Image 1 and 2: Abbas Akhavan on Fogo Island, 📷
Image 3: Abbas Akhavan, script for an island, outdoor installation, Joe Batt’s Arm, Fogo Island, 2019. Repurposed theatre curtain and scaffolding, 20’ x 12’, 📷

10/23/2024

Join our Strategic Director, Kitty Scott, and Eva Respini, Deputy Director of , this Friday at at 12:30pm.

Curators in Conversation offers audiences an insight into the processes of notable curators working today. In this talk will speak to about upcoming projects and curatorial practice.

10/22/2024

🌊 A Heartfelt Thank You! 🎨

We are so grateful to our incredible community of local artists, designers, and makers who opened their studios, galleries, and installations to the public for our inaugural Shore Time. Your passion and creativity have transformed our island.

Thank you for sharing your art, stories, and spaces with us.

Image List:
1,2 (Bruce Pashak and Janet Langdon. Photo 1 by Jane Brokenshire and photo 2 by Jeremy Harnum)
3,4 (Adam Young, Young Studios. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
5,6 (Caitlyn Terry. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
7,8 (Sarah Fulford, Fogo Clay Studio. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
9,10 (Claudia Brahms. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
11,12 (Noel J. Mount. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
13,14 (Erin Hunt . Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
15,16 (Jason Murphy. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
17,18 (M'Liz Keefe. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
19,20 (Katrina Tompkins. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
21,22 (Winds and Wave Artisan Guild Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
23,24 (Marc Fiset, Fogo Island Metalworks. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
25,26 (Nadine Decker. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
27, 28 ( Fogo Island Forager Mona Brown, Mona's Quilt and Jam Shop. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
29, 30 (Paddy Barry. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
31,32 (Peggy White. Photo 1 by Jeremey Harnum, photo 2 by Jane Brokenshire)
33,34 (Linda Osmond and Winston Osmond, Herring Cove Art Gallery. Photos by Jane Brokenshire)
35,36 (Lee Danisch and Fraser Carpenter, Fogo Island Saltfire Pottery. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
37, 38 (Harry Sheppard. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)
39, 40 (J.K. Contemporary. Photos by Jeremy Harnum)

10/22/2024

If you are in Toronto tomorrow, don’t miss, “Codscapes, Found & Lost” a presentation with L. Sasha Gora, our most recent Labrador Current Foodways resident . The talk is held at the Culinaria Research Centre, University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus, October 23, 2024, Toronto, Canada at 11am.

10/17/2024

Last week, the Northern Lights were seen across the northern hemisphere. It was amazing to see them light up the sky above Fogo Island Gallery, located within Fogo Island Inn.

📸

10/17/2024

Our Eric Fischl-New York Academy of Art intern Sarah Beatty is holding an open studio this evening!