“Knitting Ourselves into a Bigger World": Local/Global Dynamics in the “New Newfoundland Aesthetic” on Fogo Island

• Main Author: Sharratt, Ariel
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Fogo; Fogo Island; Fogo Island Inn; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/1766/; http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/1766/1/Sharratt%20-%20Knitting%20Ourselves%20into%20a%20Bigger%20World.pdf

Like many rural areas that now leverage heritage for tourism purposes, Fogo Island — off Newfoundland’s Northeast coast — is the site of an ambitious arts-centred revitalization project led by native-daughter and wealthy philanthropist Zita Cobb and the Shorefast Foundation. At the centre of this project is the Fogo Island Inn, a luxury hotel furnished with designs created for the Inn by professional designers (largely European) and produced by local craftspeople. Cobb has cited a desire to create a “new Newfoundland aesthetic” and images of the Inn and its interiors have circulated through the international design press. Looking specifically at the quilts produced for the Inn by local quilters under the guidance of the Foundation’s designers, this thesis considers the history of textile crafts on this island and how the traditions now alluded to came to be invented, and how “the local” is being produced by Fogo Island textile craft.