Regional Focus – Galway City

Galway City

Civic Contribution

Megs MorleyDirector, Galway Arts Centre

GALWAY IS ONE of the most vibrant cultural cities in Ireland, bustling with extraordinary talent, with artists from all over the world choosing to make this city at the uttermost western edge of Europe their home. A highly internationalised city, it is also embedded in a region steeped in traditional culture and language. This unique context has nurtured an incredibly rich dynamic of creative practices, with Galway Arts Centre (GAC) playing a central role in the development of this cultural ecology for over 40 years.

GAC was founded in 1981 by the Galway Artists Group in a former Presbyterian church located in Nun’s Island, who initially renovated the church as a gallery space and theatre, the first of its kind in Galway. In 1988, the former city residence of Lady Gregory on 47 Dominick Street was redeveloped by Galway City Council into a modern gallery for Galway Arts Centre. Since then, GAC has operated a cultural campus across these two venues as a multidisciplinary arts centre focusing on visual art, theatre, and literature.

Many of Galway’s most important cultural organisations were initiated and developed by Galway Arts Centre, including TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway Theatre Festival, Galway Youth Theatre, Cúirt International Festival of Literature, and many more. Along with this, former curators and directors such as Helen Carey, Paul Fahy, Ger Ward, Michael Dempsey and Maeve Mulrennan to name but a few, developed important bodies of work that supported artists and played a central role in the cultural scene within the city.

As the new(ish) director and curator of GAC (since September 2021), I feel that this legacy is important for us to reflect on, as we embark on a new chapter in the development of GAC and the arts in Galway. I believe the legacy of GAC extends far beyond its walls – it is more social, rhizomatic, and radical. GAC is situated at the core of a delicate cultural ecology that has supported and nurtured so many artists and creative communities in the West of Ireland over the decades. This is a legacy that we are committed to continuing, growing, and expanding in the coming years.

This year has been challenging and exciting in equal measure for everyone in GAC, with the return to the first in-person Cúirt Festival in two years, as well as Galway Youth Theatre’s return to the stage this summer, as part of Galway International Arts Festival. Opening the galleries again was a delight with Kevin Gaynor’s Currency Exchange (2022) last December, and with the 2022 visual art programme ‘Entangled Histories’ – which included artists Sarah Pierce, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Alice Rekab, Duncan Campbell, Denise Ferreira da Silva

and Arjuna Neuman – as well as solo exhibitions by Declan Clarke and Sean Lynch. We have developed a new Artists-in-Residence scheme, through which we have supported the work of Éireann and I, Pavithra Kannan, and Rewind Fastforward Record.

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of our year was bringing the Turner Prize-winning work The Druthaib’s Ball by Belfast-based collective, Array, to GAC in August. This immersive installation, which celebrates collectivity and activism and highlights human rights issues in Northern Ireland, was installed in our performance space in Nun’s Island Theatre, with a wider concurrent exhibition by Array in our galleries. To bring that work to Galway was a huge collective venture in itself, involving extensive partnerships at local, national, and international level. Opening the exhibition in partnership with Galway Community Pride was an incredible and joyous event, with Array and their peers from Northern Ireland marching with local Galway groups.

Our public engagement programme was hosted in the installation itself, which takes the form of an illegal bar, or sibín, and comprised over 25 performances, discussions, talks, and workshops over the duration of six weeks. This opened the space for the public to engage in deeply resonant, complex discussions and experiences that variously unearthed LGBTQ+ histories in Galway, explored the politics of the North, the social history of traditional song, the activism inherent in storytelling, the transgressive practices in Irish wakes, and the creative potential and joy of working together collectively.

We look forward to an exciting programme next year at GAC, which includes a solo exhibition by The Otolith Group, a new open-call Artist-in-Residence programme, an innovative sound project by Red Bird Youth Art Collective with artist Anne Marie Deacy, a contemporary choral theatre project by Galway Youth Theatre, the first edition of the Cúirt festival programmed by new festival director Manuela Moser, and much more. We also very much look forward to our ongoing and long-term partnership with Galway City Council, which has resulted in a significant capital development investment in our performance space in Nun’s Island. Works begin in 2023 and will redevelop the site to provide much needed rehearsal, production, and performance space in the city, as well as making a crucial contribution to civic space for public participation in the arts.

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Array collective participating in Galway Community Pride Parade, prior to the launch of The Druthaib’s Ball, 13 August; photograph by Tom Flanagan courtesy Array and Galway Arts Centre.

Array, The Druthaib’s Ball, 2021, installation view, Nun’s Island, Galway; photograph by Tom Flanagan, courtesy Array and Galway Arts Centre.

Array collective, first-floor gallery, Galway Arts Centre; photograph by Tom Flanagan, courtesy Array and Galway Arts Centre.

Engage Art Studios

Rita McMahonManaging Director

FOUNDED IN 2004, Engage Art Studios is dedicated to providing studios to professional visual artists and has become an integral part of the Galway visual arts scene. As an organisation, Engage has developed and grown a lot over the years, expanding and relocating in order to continue to provide support for professional visual artists in the development of their practices.

Our goal has always been to offer affordable, secure, well-lit, and private studios, as well as to foster an atmosphere of creativity, production, inspiration, and opportunity for working artists in the Galway area. Engage has created, and continues to maintain, a supportive environment of productivity and creativity. Engage has become a vital part of the Galway creative landscape.

In 2017, we opened a second premises with six studios on St. Francis Street in the city centre, in addition to the studios in The Cathedral Building on Middle Street. However, in 2019, Engage faced immense upheaval when we were forced to vacate the Cathedral Building studios due to an unaffordable and unsustainable rent hike. Thankfully, the move, while extremely challenging, had a prosperous outcome in the discovery of the new premises in Churchfields, Salthill, where Engage Art Studios remain at present.

The new space in Salthill allowed us to increase the facilities available to our member artists, and provided us the opportunity to expand our exhibition and event programming, as well as our education programme. In Churchfields, we now have a gallery space, project workspace, seven single-occupancy studios, a hot desk area and digital suite, small library, storage and kitchen utilities, and space to expand into printmaking facilities and a darkroom.

We have been able to expand our education programme in the form of weekly children’s art classes, provided by our education co-ordinator, and adult workshops run by member artists and invited facilitators. This has allowed us to establish Engage as

a resource for the community as well as a creative hub.

With this dramatic increase in supports that we can offer, we have been able to sustain over 30 artists working in the Galway area, providing 13 physical studio spaces, and Orbital Membership to over 20 artists, allowing them to avail of all benefits of the studios common spaces and services, including professional practice opportunities, talks, exhibitions and peer-based critiques.

It is not only the physical facilities that we offer, but the secondary supports that make Engage a vital resource for visual artists in the region. As an organisation, we aim to continually develop and grow our model as the needs of artists working and living in Galway evolve. As a cultural hub, Galway thrives; however, the visual arts in the region need to be nurtured and supported by organisations, community, and government funding bodies. I strongly believe in the power of partnership, particularly through the connection of artists and networks of organisations in a small city such as Galway.

One of my aims when I was appointed as director of Engage in 2021 was to maintain good relationships with like-minded spaces, both locally and nationally, to continue to foster partnerships. Thanks to the stability of securing a dedicated arts premises within the city, we can now further engage with the programming of exhibitions and events in our space and in collaboration with other organisations, the many festivals in Galway, national cultural programmes, exchanges and collaborations with other studios and galleries. The collaborations we have undertaken, along with our longstanding dedication to providing workspaces for artists, have allowed Engage Art Studios to develop into a flagship visual art facility and an essential pillar of the cultural infrastructure of Galway.

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Exterior of Engage Art Studios, Galway; image courtesy of Engage Art Studios.

Evolution of Artist-Run

Lindsay MerlihanDirector, 126 Artist-Run Gallery & Studios

Exterior of 126 Artist-Run Gallery and Studios; image courtesy of 126 Artist-run Gallery and Studios.

THE SEASON AND the time of day are indiscernible within the misty wet of another grey day in Salthill. The full moon has brought hightide and you’re feeling audacious, looking down from Blackrock Diving Tower. The wind has howled a hundred “will I, won’t I’s” but you’ve just publicly emerged from the awkward towel chrysalis of a tog change and find yourself ready to spread those wings…LEAP! Mid-air thoughts go something like: “Weeee!” and “Fuuuck!” then “Sploosh!” into the deep end.

That’s what it’s like to join an artist-run space. There’s no preparation for the plunge that leads innocent creatives into the immersion of artist-run. It’s trial by fire and explosive creativity; it’s investing oneself by means of service to the arts. It’s teamwork, growth, compromise, firefighting; it’s doing tedious admin, and experiencing moments of awe, completion and success. It’s anxious existentialism of funding applications, and sacrificing time from one’s personal arts practice, whilst gathering the experience and knowledge for its success. It’s a 24-hour Whatsapp group; it’s ambitiously bringing into focus the radical, emerging arts that lie on the fringes. It’s brilliant mayhem. You can learn all about it in our book, Artist-Run Democracy: Sustaining a Model (Onomatopee Projects, 2021) edited by Jim Ricks.

126 does not operate like a normal gallery or museum. We rely on the support of our membership programme and the efforts of a voluntary board of directors, who each serve a two-year term. The organisation, at its very foundation, is always changing. For a brief period, I have the honour of stoking the 126 fire.

In 2013, the winds of Chicago blew me into Galway with a backpack and here I am nearly ten years later. Just another blow-in who chose to stay, contributing to the ever-changing landscape of Galway. My first years were spent adjusting to the wild west, making genuine connections to some whom have come and gone. But, like the tide, my relationship to Galway has changed. The ebb of life’s waters has since withdrawn me from the town centre, and poured me into the edges of Connemara, where my Michigan-born soul is soothed

by nature and where I can (just barely) afford the rent. Engaging with this special place through a mixed-media practice, informed by studies in Depth Psychology and art therapy, has certainly impacted my contribution to 126.

I am one of six directors of the current, unintentional, all-female board. I suppose that for all the boards of men that we’ve seen administrate the world, a few months of women conjuring spells in 126 won’t hurt. It is up to every new wave of directors to determine their values. What is the role of the gallery? What is emerging in Irish culture that needs to be seen, heard, or experienced, and who is reflecting that in their practice? How might we ethically play the role of cultural producers while awkwardly navigating our own learning experience? What matters to us and why?

By a stroke of luck, our current board share a lot of the same values in cultural programming. This is something that anchors us. While writing our 2023 programme, we discussed how the land-based rituals of our Irish ancestors contributed a meaningful culture. We discussed how might we link the ancient past to practices relevant in the digital age. We spoke about ecological biodiversity, racial inequality, threats to marginalised communities, and consequentially, the loss of a soulful life. How can we connect again to this human spectrum through the multifaceted lens of immersive arts?

In extending our view to include artforms that stimulate a wider range of sensory activation within singular exhibitions, we began to think of the gallery as a place where polarities meet. This alchemical function of the gallery is where we centre our 2023 programme. The current directorship of 126 is here, if only for a moment in time, as a vessel for transformation, and we thank Galway for engaging in this continuous evolution.

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New Directions

Kate HowardGalway City Council Arts Officer (acting)

GALWAY CITY COUNCIL was one of the first local authorities in the country to establish an arts office and is the key agency for the development and support of the arts in the city. Galway City Arts Office has seen some changes and developments since the retirement of Arts Officer James C. Harrold in 2021 – a position he had held for over 20 years. Gary McMahon took over the reins in the autumn of 2021 and I joined the Arts Office team in July 2022.

My connection with Galway spans over 20 years. I have worked with many of the city’s arts organisations and communities, as producer of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts; producer of Arts in Action – a programme at NUI Galway led by the late Mary McPartlan; as National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA) constituency coordinator and steering committee member; as arts representative for the Galway City Council Strategic Policy Committee; as Cultural Producer with Galway 2020; and as a founding director of Culture Works.

Galway is a proud city. Its people and culture are a central part of the city’s identity and one of its greatest strengths. Embedded in and enveloped by its county hinterland, Galway has a rich creative scene that provides a distinctive, welcoming, and inspiring environment. The city supports a diverse range of cultural activities with a highly capable and confident arts sector. This has grown over the years in ambition, capacity, and reach, supported by the designation of European Capital of Culture in 2020, which was also the impetus for creating one of the first cultural strategies in the country.

With my knowledge of the local cultural landscape, I am acutely aware of the challenges and the opportunities facing the arts in Galway City. These are clearly outlined in Galway City Council’s New Directions: Strategic Plan for the Arts 2021-2026, which was adopted by the Elected Members of City Council in May 2021. This policy document (itself informed by the Cultural

Strategy Framework, Everybody Matters 2016-2025) forms the basis for the work of the Arts Officer and Arts Development Officer. It prioritises the engagement of children and young people and supports local communities to access and participate in arts and culture, while recognising and supporting the innovative, collaborative, international and world-class artists, creative individuals, and arts and culture organisations and groups.

Galway City Arts Office engages with contemporary creativity in the art forms of architecture, circus, dance, film, literature, music, opera, street art and spectacle, theatre, traditional arts, and visual arts. We work in practices that cross art forms to encompass venues, young people, children, education, arts and health, arts and disability, socially engaged art and artist’s support. The Arts Office is active in its support of engagement, production, and dissemination through the medium of the Irish language, recognising that both contemporary and traditional arts are key elements in the diverse culture of our city. The programmes, projects and organisational supports for arts and culture are funded by Galway City Council from its annual budget, and through funding from The Arts Council, Creative Ireland, The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, as well as from other government departments and national agencies.

I feel honored to be working with and supporting the Galway City arts community, the communities they work with, and my colleagues in Galway City Council on the implementation of the Cultural Strategy, the Arts Plan, and the fostering of Galway’s character and culture through the City Development Plan. The Arts Office recognises and understands the principles crucial to its sustainability, and it promises to support its creative citizens and communities into the future.

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John Gerrard, Flare [Oceania], 2022, pictured at Galway Docks as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2022; photograph by Ros Kavanagh, courtesy of the artist and International Arts Festival.

Full Steam Ahead

Anne Marie DeacyVisual Artist

Anne Marie Deacy, Playing A Soundcard Of Monivea, 2020, Flexidisc embossed postcard 7’’x5’’; photograph © and courtesy of the artist.

I AM A Galway-based artist and field recordist with a background in music and experimental sound making, as well as in the collective DIY subcultures that are the soul of Galway City. Just before there was any talk of a pandemic, I was awarded a bursary as part of the Galway County Arts Office 2019 Support Scheme. This support was invaluable, and the funding was used to create a sound postcard. On one side, there was an embedded 90 second field recording of church bells; the card was to be posted and played like vinyl on a record player at 45rpm.

Sound as activism is a theme that permeates the work of many sound artists, and I am no different. This sound postcard was my response to the disappearance of regional bus routes, the closing of hundreds of post offices, churches, and pubs that are a lifeline for so many, with nothing replacing these social hubs that are steeped in connection, community and ritual. The sound postcard has since travelled to different continents and gone beyond anything I could have ever imagined. When played on art radio stations, it has popped up as a social commentary on a much broader scale.

I was then selected by South African curator, Brent Meistre, for the group show ‘Broken Vessels’ in the inspirational setting of Interface as part of the Galway International Arts Festival 2021 programme. For this I made Eigentone:126.22Hz-221.23Hz (2021) – a multichannel sound installation which took inspiration from Pauline Oliveros’s listening as activism, philosophies on vibration, and sound as a tool to recalibrate a broken humanity. The composition involved frequencies from Hans Cousto’s tuning forks, of select celestial bodies as they orbit the earth, all permeating through hanging sheets of corrugated steel.

Through this awakening process I was also introduced to the work of poet Lesego Rampolokeng, which led to a collaborative sound piece for Galway Culture Night. This

has evolved into work that has since been shown as part of the Radiophrenia Festival 2022 in CCA Glasgow, Audio Works Members show at Catalyst Arts, and performed at The Guesthouse Project.

When collaborations work well, the outcomes are definitely greater than the sums of their parts. This was the case when I recently collaborated with artist Joanna McGlynn on the Galway iteration of The Eco Showboat expedition – a project involving communities, scientists and artists, steered by the artist duo, Cleary Connolly. Over months of research at Portumna Forest, Joanna and I developed l a n d // i n g (2022) – an ambitious series of works and walks exploring a sensory connection to place, raising questions around care and preservation.

The collaborative nature of my work and its development necessitates looking further afield and, to this end, we are lucky to have such rich creative supports in Ireland. For the coming year I will be engaging with the National Sculpture Factory and The Guesthouse Project in Cork in preparation for my first major solo exhibition in Galway’s 126 Artist-run Gallery in 2023.

This need for connection and the ideology that art can bring about sustainable change may seem naïve, but Galway is on a new wave of makers and thinkers who, through sheer determination, are about to realise this. One of the driving forces behind that has been the appointment of Megs Morley at the Galway Arts Centre. Her recent Array Collective exhibition in the city, inspired not only conversation, but highlighted the need and power of creative, collective action. This momentum continues with the vision of the new all-female board at 126 Artist-Run Gallery and in Engage Studios’ ongoing and forward-thinking programme. It’s been badly needed, now full steam ahead. Gaillimh Abù.

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Galway: A Suburban Perspective

Hilary MorleyVisual Artist

GLORIOUSLY RE-IMAGINED BY students in the 1980s, Galway, like many other places, is fighting to preserve its expressive place in the world. Flooded by culture, sponsorships and phone shops, it has no public gallery, and very few city spaces left for creative endeavour. But when you leave it, you want to get back. In some weird way Galway just ‘gets’ it. The city celebrates creative madness and cultivates the spirit.

I live in Knocknacarra, a western suburb of the city, sprawling its way up granite hills at the back of Salthill and the Barna Road. What used to be bog land, with streams and subsistence farms, is now a place where most of Galway lives.

Bachelors who farmed the land here have passed away; their houses lie empty and derelict, their fields knotted with briars. Far away relations draw bounty from the lucrative sales of the ‘development’ land. They don’t see little fields ravaged, the fairy trees pulled up, and the rabbit warrens buried under topsoil mountains. They never hear the persistent ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ of rock-breaking machines.

But then the new families come and a community is re-born, house after house, flat after flat. A new sort of joy. Children at play, buggies on Sunday mornings, dogs on leads, a Lidl superstore, and an Irish-speaking school. The Atlantic remains a constant – breathing in and out, determining our colour, wielding its power – and beyond it, the purple hills of Clare.

This perspective of Galway feeds my work. I make drawings of places and buildings in charcoal and crayon. I build collages and paint in acrylic. I photograph the landscape in good times and bad. I play with photographs to create colourful digital worlds.

My collages cast a playful eye on the contrasts between the old and the new. My paintings in acrylic are detailed depictions of everyday things; auctioneers’ signs, community buildings, builders’ huts on the site of an old farm. My aim is to provoke thought about how we treat our landscape and how the ravage of heritage is justified

by a desperate need for housing but is done with a lack of imagination and a strong hint of commercial greed.

And the little trees that cling to the hillsides and between the dry stone walls of this place capture my heart. Mostly hawthorn, with their backs to the sea, their limbs, long and ragged, stretched by saltsoaked wind. The single swoop of a builder’s digger and years of endurance are torn away along with late-spring blossoms and autumn-berry feasts.

Knocknacarra is such a contrasting, varied place, and so too is the approach to my work. I use drawing and photography, paint and collage. Describing my methodology is tricky; I get restless if I use the same technique for very long.

Collaboration is also key to how I work. I have shared my ways of working through workshops – some with local transition-year students. Beyond suburban estates, we discover farm tracks and buildings, donkeys and wild birds. We find an empty farmhouse with a cast-iron bed and fireplaces; the stairway has long disappeared and animals now use it for shelter. We see the daffodils in the garden and an old cart against the wall in the shed. We sit on Cnoc na Rásaí to see how past generations lapped up the atmosphere of the annual races across the vista of our city below. And then we create art, using the local paper and photographs, maps and place-names. The student works are surprising and thoughtful, playful and inspiring.

Their school building is large and modern, so I am now evolving to produce larger-scale works. A large drawing that I made at Engage Art Studios in Salthill during their ‘Summer Weekly Showcase’ – a residency of sorts – shows the drama of swimming to the 100m buoy near Blackrock, a long held personal goal. The diving platform at the end of the prom is a distinctive landmark now, so I also feature it in newer works.

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Hilary Morley, Macnas Boy, 2020, digital collage; photograph ©Soft Day Media & Hilary Morley.

Rainy Metropolis of Ambition

Enda BurkeVisual Artist

Enda Burke, Deirdre by the Window, 2021, photograph; image courtesy of the artist.

LIVING IN GALWAY you are surrounded by water. Whether it’s the choppy Atlantic Ocean, or the pulsing River Corrib, or the on-average 232 days of relentless, gorgeous, cold, soaking rain, there’s just no way to avoid the water.

The ferocious River Corrib brings a mad kinetic energy to the city. This mixture of beauty and terror from the river and sea, combined with the heavenly but relentless rain, has an effect on the Galway psyche. As a daily swimmer, the sea really has a positive effect on my life and my art. My photographic portrait of a childhood friend and swimming companion, Deirdre by the Window (2021), has recently been shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize at the National Gallery of Ireland. I don’t think I would have my unrequited affection for the ocean if I didn’t have Galway Bay and a healthy dose of ‘vitamin-sea’ on my doorstep.

I started off my artistic journey doing a PLC course in film at Galway Community College. I then moved to Aberdeen in Scotland to do a BA in Visual Arts at Gray’s School of Art. In my art practice I draw a lot of inspiration from Galway, predominately photographing friends and family who are all living here and who inspire me. Before I ventured into set design and narrative photography, I shot street photography. I am heavily inspired by elevated street scenes and the interactions I witness on the streets of Galway, which I combine with the city’s beautiful, colourful environment.

I am drawn to the strange monotony associated with home life, exploring humour, nostalgia, kitsch design, and colour. I am interested in portraying how small transient details of colour and play can become marvels in monotonous settings. In order to portray these motifs through my photography, I keep a sketchbook full of research, ideas and inspiration before I pick up a camera or start a photoshoot.

From time to time, my ideas come to me when I’m drifting off to sleep, so I also keep a notepad next to my bed. I scour a lot of second-hand shops, in search of interesting props or anything that catches my eye to incorporate into the set.

I photograph both digital and film. For the more tableaux style photoshoots, I shoot digital, as it allows me to try out a variety of different compositions. I also find digital is more forgiving than film and generally more economical. I shoot my portraiture style photos with film, such as Deirdre by the Window. I like the vintage, nostalgic look film gives, and how there is no instant gratification. Film slows me down and makes me think carefully about each frame. I also appreciate its relationship to physicality. Editing my work is my favourite part of the whole process. I treat my photographs the same way a painter would.

Recently I’ve been doing new work with my friend’s greyhound lurcher, Bobo, that I am really enjoying. I think lurchers are really beautiful and unique, but I like that he is also goofy. I would like to do a mixture of documentary style portraiture and some tableaux style artworks with Bobo. In conjunction with this new series, I plan to shoot a lot more environmental portraiture with film at golden hour.

As previously mentioned, Galway is hailed as being a feast for the eyes. However, Galway is not just quaint streets. There is a whole host of talented Irish and international artists who refer to Galway as their home and muse. This city often has a reputation for being called the ‘Graveyard of Ambition’. I’m going to suggest replacing this outdated slogan with the ‘Rainy Metropolis of Ambition’.

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