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Fogo Island Decentralized Academy (FIDA) was a mobile schoolhouse conceptualized by 2014 curator-in-residence Nicole Lattuca, and designed and built in collaboration with students and community members of Fogo Island, Newfoundland.

Adapting its name from the island’s only school, Fogo Island Central Academy, FIDA moved through the community using traditional Newfoundland methods of house launching. The school was a traveling laboratory, a site to discuss and actively think about how vernacular and contemporary architecture are in dialogue with each other on the island as well as their roles in social change. Fogo Island Decentralized Academy aimed to highlight the necessity of reevaluating local knowledge as a way to understand and discuss the current changes to Fogo Island, to stress the profound educational potential in what has become commonplace or obsolete, and to emphasize the preservation of built and natural history as a means of creating space for new ways of thinking.

The inaugural launch and participatory activities took place in October, 2014. Over 100 community members participated in hauling the small wooden structure over land from the school to the local Partridgeberry Harvest Festival, where FIDA was central to communal activities and conversation.