The 2011 Tulca Festival of Visual Arts opens on Friday, 4 November, in galleries and other spaces across Galway. This year’s festival, entitled ‘After the Fall’, will take place from 4 to 20 November. Curated by Megs Morley, a number of events will be held in association with NUI Galway.

Highlights for the festival will include renowned Romanian artist Lia Perjovschi’s creation of an installation in the foyer of The James Hardiman Library in NUI Galway. One of Romania’s leading artists, Lia’s work focuses on the activities of collecting, archiving, structuring, distributing and mediating a variety of knowledge about society, politics and art which had been inaccessible to Romania until after 1989. Perjovschi has exhibited all over the world, and her life under the Ceausescu dictatorship has greatly influenced her work and mode of artistic expression, which always includes some political relevance.

The James Hardiman Library will be open to the public for the duration of the festival. On Saturday, 5 November, Perjovschi will present a talk on her practice in the James Hardiman Library Browsing Room at 3pm.

On Saturday, November 12, ‘Fugitive Papers’, an artistic research project examining art and art-writing as a public and critical activity will take place in The View, Áras na Mac Léinn,  NUI Galway at 3pm. It will be presented by Michaele Cutaya, James Merrigan and Fiona Woods.

On Thursday, 17 November, a collaborative NUI Galway and GMIT presentation and workshop by Frances Whitehead ‘The Embedded Artist Project: Strategies for Civic Engagement. What do Artists Know?’ will be held in the Huston School of Film and Digital Media at the University. The session will discuss the strategy of ‘embedding’ practising artists at local government level, bridging policy and practice in order to bring new perspectives and innovative approaches to addressing the challenges in planning the city’s future. The event is free to attend but spaces must be booked in advance through Dee Quinn in the NUI Galway Huston School of Film and Digital Media at dee.quinn@nuigalway.ie.

Ann Lyons of the Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI) at NUI Galway, said: “This connection to the visual arts through Tulca is a valuable aspect of NUI Galway’s commitment to the arts in Galway. Its participation in Tulca also provides an opportunity for collaboration between NUI Galway and GMIT, developing stronger links between the two third-level institutions in the city. We are very pleased to be associated with Tulca and welcome everyone to the University to experience this exciting festival of visual art.”

Tulca Festival of Visual Arts includes a further programme of workshops, talks and events and brings the work of a range of international and Irish artists to Galway. Full programme details are available at www.tulca.ie.

-ENDS-