The Hold Fast Festival will be returning to St. John’s this August, aiming to highlight contemporary art and community engagement.
The festival, hosted by Eastern Edge, aims to facilitate community exchange, increase public knowledge of the arts, and help build regional identity in Newfoundland & Labrador. The central event of the festival will be Art Crawl, a series of installations, pop-up galleries, and performances staged outdoors and in ordinary buildings. Past festivals have also included artist talks and workshops for those looking to develop their craft or understanding as well as film screenings, dance events, and more.
Hold Fast’s featured artistic installations will be Joliz Dela Pena’s “When the Body Remembers”, “How does it sound/How does it feel?” by B. G. Osborne, and Khadija Aziz’s “Mirroring the Land Mirroring Ourselves”. The featured artists will also be leading workshops on performance art, stim toy making, and mirror embroidery, respectively.
The festival, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, draws on volunteer efforts to help host its annual event, as well as funds raised through a garage sale event hosted in June. Art festivals and exhibitions like this often use methods like flyer printing to help connect with the community.
The 2025 Hold Fast Contemporary Arts Festival will take place from August 5 to 9 at locations throughout St. John’s.
