A collaborative success: Cabox Art and Adventure Festival

In the fall of 2021 Navigate and Grenfell Campus collaborated with Cabox Geopark Inc. and community partners to establish the inaugural arts and adventure festival in the in the Corner Brook/Bay of Islands region.

The Cabox Art and Adventure Festival took place from Sept. 17-19, 2021 and featured events for all ages from visual art workshops and exhibits, to an artisan market, indoor and outdoor entertainment, dining experiences and outdoor activities, including interpreted hikes and zodiac tours.

The festival had several entrepreneurial components for artist entrepreneurs, including a competition (call for submissions) of artwork representing the relationship between the people and the local landscape; outdoor art installations of winning submissions at various festival trailhead locations; an open-air market for artists to demonstrate and sell their work, and artist masterclass workshops for festival patrons and youth which were facilitated by paid arts professionals.

"This was an opportunity to help support and encourage local artist entrepreneurs and art students and to grow the local tourism industry," said Allison Rowe, Manager, Navigate Entrepreneurship Centre.

For example, scenic interpretive hikes of the Three Bear Mountain trail and the Bear Head to Man in the Mountain trail brought participants to trailheads where they passed the newly commissioned art installations created by NL-based artist Jason Holley. The work invited hikers and festival patrons to "pause and think about language and land" via a series of stencils and labels with Mi'kmaq words. Trail goers were invited to take stencils with words such as Wiskiman (Partridgeberry) or Mi'kma'ki (Mi'kmaq territory) and to use them along the trail or at home to identify and label various plants, places and things along the trail. The project was presented by The Cloud Factory in collaboration with Navigate and the Grenfell Art Gallery.

The North Arm Zodiac Tour and Group Hike was fully booked — hikers took in the beautiful Bay of Islands in two zodiacs, operated by Gros Morne Adventures and Saltbox's Everoutdoor Adventures.

In Corner Brook on the lawn of First United Church, a number of young people participated in a youth landscape art workshop, where everyone tried oils for the first time.

"One of the biggest challenges for the artist entrepreneur is mindset — being able to see themselves as an entrepreneur," said Ms. Rowe. "Traditionally, when we thought of entrepreneurs, it conjured up images of businesspersons in suits selling goods and services and crunching numbers, but entrepreneurs are so much more than that. All artists are entrepreneurs. They have products and ideas to sell that they put out into the marketplace."

Navigate would like to continue to support artist entrepreneurs and new tourism ventures by offering the guidance, training, resources and connections they need to launch new businesses. Navigate looks forward to continuing this partnership with the Cabox Geopark in the coming years.

"At Navigate, we want to provide artist entrepreneurs with the basic business skills and mindset they need in order to thrive, including a willingness to approach selling their art as any entrepreneur would," she said. "Their art and their work have value and it is important to understand that value and what it means for potential customers and clients."

Background

The Cabox Geopark is a self-governing, non-profit organization, comprised of a volunteer board who are currently pursuing UNESCO Global Geopark status for the Cabox Geopark in the interest of developing a world-class tourism product and promoting the region's natural and cultural heritage, while increasing local knowledge, innovative technology and rural economic development in the region.

Grenfell Campus's Office of Engagement has already been partnering with Cabox to develop an educational website designed to identify, compile and present the geological, ecological and sociological features of the Appalachian-Caledonian region, from the southeastern United States to Newfoundland, and across the Atlantic Ocean to Greenland, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Norway. The Cabox Art and Adventure Festival was an opportunity to involve Grenfell's School of Fine Arts and the Grenfell Campus Art Gallery.