September2018 NUI Galway Opens Its Doors for Culture Night 2018

Culture Night will return on Friday, 21 September with a large number of venues and public spaces across Ireland opening their doors to host a programme of free entertainment, as part of an all-island celebration of arts, heritage, science and culture. Now in its thirteenth year, the free annual event encourages more people of all ages to visit cultural venues and to experience culture in their own locality.

Following a very popular collaboration on Culture Night 2017, staff and students of NUI Galway will partner with the Galway Music Residency again this year. Together, they will kick off Culture Night with a lunchtime experience of music, song, sculpture and performance on the theme of ‘Space’. On the O’Donoghue Centre stage and in the adjacent buildings at 1pm, the ConTempo Quartet, NUI Galway Staff Singers, NUI Galway Drama and Performance Studies students and sculptor James Fleming will present an audio-visual show that invites viewers to look to the sky and reimagine the space around them.

CÚRAM, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Medical Devices at NUI Galway, is also teaming up with the National Aquarium (Galway Atlantaquaria) to showcase the science behind the shores of Galway Bay. ‘Sea-search: Marine Inspired Research’ is an interactive, educational science investigation of the links between marine science and medical devices. Researchers taking part in the event will talk about a range of research across these two fields currently underway in Galway, from microplastics and animal regeneration, to drug delivery and barnacle inspired glues!

Participants will meet at 5:45pm on Grattan beach for a walk through the Salthill seascape, followed by a trip to the Galway Atlantaquaria to learn about how marine life has inspired modern advances in medicine and technology. Sea-search is an ideal family event where participants of all ages get to experience the worlds of medical and marine science and discover amazing facts and experiments designed to inspire the next generation of ‘Sea-searchers’. To book a place on this free event visit www.seasearch.ie.

The Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics will open its doors from 6-8pm. The public are invited to enjoy the sights and sounds of the early days of computer gaming from the 1970s and 1980s with classics such as Pacman, Tetris, the commodore Vic-20, and many more.

Canadian poet, Chad Norman, will also perform a special poetry reading in the James Hardiman Library from 1-2pm. Chad will be joined at this lunchtime event by local poets Celeste Auge, Gerry Hanberry and Mary Madec.

Admission to these events are free and open to all and early arrival is recommended. For further information on all the events taking place for Culture Night 2018 visit https://culturenight.ie/.

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