[Main image: the Fogo Island Inn]
On the evening of Friday, April 29th, over 600 people filled the Fredericton Playhouse to see “Strange & Familiar”, a Halifax-based film on the impact of design on Fogo Island and then to hear Zita Cobb, the principal animator for the project, speak about what, how and why they embarked on this community transformation.
The film documents the design and building of artists’ studios and the 29 room Fogo Island Inn, along with the involvement of the community and Fogo Islanders’ centuries old skills of self-reliance.
Zita Cobb’s talk combined a deep and integrated understanding of community development, business, art and design, philosophy, the power of place and that special brand of humor indigenous to Newfoundland. Her presentation was grounded in the work of writers, artists and critical thinkers many of which she quoted.
If you were there you felt the power of what ideas and determination can do to revive and enliven communities when the strengths of the community and the specifics of place combine with vision.
The sense of what’s possible in an age of increasing despair, especially now in New Brunswick, is captured by Quaker elder, writer, educator, and activist Parker Palmer, when he quotes the end of Wild Geese by Wendell Berry: “What we need is here”. It is both within us and between us and is found in right relationship. This is Zita’s message about Fogo Island’s transformation
Zita referred to many tools for development: many are ideas, some practical methods. Among them was Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), that poses essential questions for community development:
- What do we know?
- What do we have?
- What do we love?
- What do we miss?
- What can we do about it?
She also referred to the global community on the analogy of the cauliflower. It is, she said, a fractal of florets/communities nourished by a common stem. Part of the problem we face locally and globally is caused by a stem that has become more concerned with its own well being rather than that of the communities it is intended to support.
Zita concluded her presentation with an excerpt from Glenn Colquhoun poem, The Art of Walking Upright:
“The art of walking upright here
is the art of using both feet.
One is for holding on.
One is for letting go.”
[Source]
To see a recent talk by Zita go here. To learn more about the social enterprise she helped establish have a look here. The evening was sponsored b the Architects’ Association of New Brunswick. Thank you architects, film directors Katherine Knight and Marcia Connolly, and Zita Cobb!
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