HOLD FAST
HOLD FAST respectfully acknowledges that the land we are occupying is the unceded and ancestral homelands of the Beothuk and that Ktaqmkuk, known as the island of Newfoundland, is home to the Mi’kmaq peoples. We would also like to recognize the Inuit of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut, and the Innu of Nitassinan as the original peoples of Labrador.
We strive to move beyond acknowledgment to active solidarity, by building meaningful relationships in our communities, dismantling structures of white supremacy, and opposing ongoing colonization. We invite our communities to consider their own responsibilities to Indigenous peoples and to the stolen lands where we make our homes.
HOLD FAST Festival is a celebration of contemporary performance, interdisciplinary art, and community engagement in St. John’s, NL.
- Facilitating community engagement and meaningful exchange
- Increasing public arts literacy
- Creating opportunities for artists
- Critiquing and subverting structural oppressions & systems of power, with emphasis on:
- queer, feminist, and anti-racist perspectives
- Newfoundland & Labrador regional identity
- and Indigenous resistance to colonialism
HOLD FAST culminates in a Saturday afternoon Art Crawl, a series of performances, installations, and interactive pop-ups staged outdoors and in non-gallery venues across downtown St. John’s. Past programming has included performances, interactive installations, artist talks, workshops, dance, drag, burlesque, film screenings, and free community events for people of all ages.
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Hadiza Bello, HOLD FAST Festival Coordinator
Hadiza Jummai Bello is a recent Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) graduate from Memorial University’s Grenfell Campus, where she specialized in painting, textiles, and sculpture. Her artistic practice explore and reclaims visual representations of Black identity, challenging the dominant narratives and redefining how Blackness is portrayed. Over the course of her degree, Hadiza exhibited in shows like Construct/ Obstruct at the Tina Dolter Gallery, the 2024 Fresh Paint and New Constriction exhibition at the Art Mur Gallery, and between/ the lines, the 2025 BFA graduating exhibition at the Grenfell Art Gallery. She is preparing for the 2025 Fresh Paint and new Construction exhibition at the Art Mur Gallery as well as her first solo exhibition, scheduled for summer 2026 at the Tina Dolter Gallery.
HOLD FAST is funded by Canadian Heritage.
