From January 25th to April 25th of 2014, I participated in an experience-based research phase of a total six-month artist residency on Fogo Island in Newfoundland, Canada. This research portion of the residency was an immersion into the livelihood of Fogo Island and the practice of everyday life in remote Newfoundland. Following the research phase and a 3-month development phase off the island, I returned on August 18th to November 10th 2014 to realize a socially engaged and education-based project.
The Fogo Island De-Centralized Academy (FIDA) is a contemporary art and architecture project that utilizes heritage structures and vocabulary to initiate a youth driven conversation about recent shifts in economy and culture on Fogo Island, and the role of art and architecture in those shifts. Through this project youth learn of similar global initiatives and strategize their own designs for growing (or slowing) the economy of the island. Although conceptually decentralized, the school will be a socially / physically / geographically central place for conversation, critical thinking and invention. FIDA will physically connect the communities and the school, by utilizing the specific methods of Newfoundland house launching. It is my aim to engage with this regional tradition of house moving, or launching, in order that the mobile schoolhouse will bring the community together, while acknowledging a new use and new discussions that can be sparked from this community wide event. In creating a think tank platform where youth can engage with the changes taking place on the island, they necessitate an integral voice in those changes and grow to have a full understanding of how their community is situated in a global context. This project is vital to the island and its inhabitants of all ages and is built with a flexible structure that will grow and change alongside the changes to Fogo Island.
BLOG:
A NORTH WIND
WRITING:
Social Practice on Fogo Island, In Circulation (McGill University), Nicole Lattuca, 2014