Last in a three-part series —
Social networking, Fogo Island style, won’t revolve around computers, Facebook or Twitter.
No, if things happen as planned, networking on the isle of fire will see visiting artists and locals meeting up, sharing experiences and inspiring each other.
“Our main task will be to facilitate this kind of meeting with the local people,” says Elisabet Gunnarsdottir, director of the Fogo Island Arts Corp.
It’s running a burgeoning artists residency program with the support of the Shorefast Foundation, an organization working to foster cultural resilience on the island through a five-star inn and arts programs.
Artists accepted for the residency program will come to Fogo Island for three months.
They will create in a contemporary studio designed by Gander’s Todd Saunders and live in a traditional house that’s been purchased and restored. (For more on those homes, see story on page A4)
The desired result would see the artists and residents encounter each other, share stories, sorrows and joys, and gain knowledge and inspiration.
Gunnarsdottir, an Icelander who worked with a residency program in Norway before relocating to Fogo Island, says it’s a way to create something special, based on her experience.
In Norway, she said, the artist centre was on a hill and the community was below it.
A lot of her efforts went into dragging one group out to meet the other.
“But when we managed to create meeting places for those two groups of people, magic happened,” she says.
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- - Zita Cobb: back to Fogo, with love
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It’s hoped powerful spells will be cast on Fogo Island as artists and islanders interact.
The focus of the residency program will be art.
“It’s not about just making beautiful things without questioning it,” Gunnarsdottir says.
The initiative is bent toward visual arts, but they’d like to include as many disciplines as possible at first.
Last year, an open call for artists, curators and filmmakers generated 130 applications.
Eight artists were successful and they will each spend three months on Fogo Island in 2011-12.
Gunnarsdottir is thrilled with the response and anticipates the interest will only grow.
She notes an artist from New Delhi came last year and it worked out so well he’s returning.
Gunnarsdottir says the arts corp will facilitate some meetings with locals through lectures, seminars and its production program, which has locals designing and creating furnishings for the Fogo Island Inn.
This year’s production program includes a seminar on the idea of remote and a theatre master class on Henrik Ibsen’s work led by a team from the National Arts Centre.
“The production program, it’s for us to be able to make sure something stays behind,” Gunnarsdottir says.
The Fogo Island Arts Corp. will also run a program for people who visit and for guests of the Fogo Island Inn, which is slated to open in 2012.
“In most of what we do, we have locally-rooted themes, locally rooted meanings. They always have inspiration in what is here, what this place is all about.” - Elisabet Gunnarsdottir
The objective is to bring the visitors, artists and locals together on different-themed excursions.
Participants will look back at the Beothuck or first Europeans, observe what’s happening at the art studios or ponder questions about the changes facing places like Fogo Island.
“In most of what we do, we have locally-rooted themes, locally rooted meanings,” Gunnarsdottir says. “They always have inspiration in what is here, what this place is all about.”
She’s confident the arts corporation’s initiatives will succeed and produce results.
“The people who come here, they all sense how magical this place is and most people can’t really put words to it.
“When you’re here, something happens to you that gives you this fulfilment. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the place. Maybe how authentic and real it is, people’s lives. It’s not pretentious in any way.”
Shorefast founder Zita Cobb hopes the arts programs and inn will have an effect that lasts for decades and decades.
“(In 20 or 30 years’ time) I’d like to think we created a bit of a spirit of entrepreneurial thinking based on who we are,” she says. sbartlett@thetelegram.com
Twitter: bartlett_steve
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