Festival Report: HOLD FAST 2024
This year, 2024, marks the festival’s 25th anniversary, celebrated throughout a week of always engaging, always eclectic arts programming.
The 2024 Festival Report is a fully formatted document, comprised of Come Around Again: HOLD FAST at 25, an essay by HOLD FAST Writer-in-Residence Chad Feehan. The text is accompanied by documentation from official festival photographers Ethel Brown (m+e photography) and Shireen Merchant.
Click here to view and download the 2024 HOLD FAST Festival Report PDF.
“My name is Chad Feehan, and I am a writer, musician, and visual artist, and person-with-stutter from the City of St. John’s. For multiple years, I have been honing my arts-writing skills with my experiences with Lawyna Vawyna and Sound Symposium as their writer-in-residence. I have also written numerous art stories for Exclaim! Magazine, The Shoreline, and The Telegram.”
“My motivation is covering creatives and their creative output. I enjoy learning about the motions of human expression through art in whatever form it takes. As an artist myself, I am able to empathize, as well as intellectualize, with artists and artistry. This perspective gives me the edge in synthesizing this communication into a compelling read. Since graduating from journalism school, it is when I speak to artists and getting to the core of their art that I truly feel like a storyteller, in turn contributing to the culture of the community at large.”
Ethel Brown is a visual artist living in St. John’s, Newfoundland
and Labrador. Born in the Philippines, Ethel immigrated to the
island of Newfoundland in 1987. Ethel’s photographs are
predominantly documentary and storytelling in nature, exploring
themes of belonging, home, motherhood, and everydayness. In
2021, Ethel was an artist-in-residence at Eastern Edge Artist-Run
Centre, with a subsequent exhibition in 2022. Ethel has gone on
to exhibit at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, to be a winner in
the Arts & Letters Awards 2022, and was one of the exhibiting
artists for the 2023 iteration of Bonavista Biennale. Currently,
Ethel’s work is part of a group exhibition, Gather: In Celebration of
Year of the Arts, which will be exhibiting at The Rooms from May
18 – September 22, 2024.
Shireen Merchant is a versatile visual artist currently based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Originally from Pakistan, Shireen migrated to Newfoundland, Canada, to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Grenfell Campus, Memorial University. Shireen’s artistic practice spans multiple mediums, with a deep exploration of themes such as self-identity, South Asian culture, resettlement, and the concept of home. In addition to their artistic pursuits, Shireen serves as the Digital Marketing and Visitor Engagement Coordinator at Quidi Vidi Village Artisan Studios. It was here that Shireen’s passion for photography was sparked, particularly in capturing the diverse works of the ten resident artists who work across various mediums. Focusing on product and event photography, Shireen has honed a unique approach to visual storytelling. Previously, Shireen worked as a gallery assistant at Eastern Edge, where the supportive team inspired her to further develop her photographic skills.
Thank you to everyone whose performances, installations, volunteering, and participation made this year’s HOLD FAST an unforgettable experience for our community!
