Arts & Culture

TULCA Visual Arts Festival 2015: Seachange at University of Galway

This year the annual festival of visual arts, TULCA, runs from Friday 13 November to Sunday 29 November and is curated by Mary Cremin, with University of Galway playing host to a number of events and a many of its staff participating in the festival’s activities.

Entitled Seachange, this year’s festival explores issues of climate change and our place in a changing landscape: through a combination of the real and the imaginary, the exhibiting artists create a collective call for a sea change – literally – in our current climate policies.

In addition to the visual art exhibitions and film screenings on offer, there will be a series of talks and discussions entitled Hy-Brasil Dialogues held in the Aula Maxima (the quadrangle) at University of Galway on Saturday 14 November and Saturday 28 November from 12-5pm. Throughout the series, geographers, geologists, marine researchers, architects, linguists, and artists will explore the complexity of our current environment, both locally and globally, and from their perspective of geological time, the present and future projections.

Among the contributors to the Hy-Brasil Dialogues are University of Galway’s geologist Dr Alessandra Costanzo, Director of the Geofluids Research Laboratory, geographers Dr Alexandra Revez, Post-Doctoral Researcher with the 3 Cities Project, Dr Eugene Farrell, Lecturer in Geography, and writer and sean-nós singer Dr Lillis O’Laoire, Senior Lecturer in Irish.

Dr Lillis O’Laoire will also feature in Island Sessions: Stories and Songs of Sea and Shore, a lunchtime event of live performances being held in the TULCA Festival Gallery, Connacht Tribune Print Works, Market Street, from 1-3pm on Sunday 15 November. Dr O’Laoire will perform folk tales, legends and songscapes of the west coast of Ireland, encompassing magic, transformations, love, loss and pride of place, alongside local storyteller Seosamh Ó Guairim.

Finally, The James Mitchell Geology Museum in the university is a focal point for this year’s TULCA. The fossils and the specimens exhibited in the museum speak of a geological time that is beyond our comprehension; artist Barbara Knezevic’s piece Conglomerations, Constellations draws on the geological samples from the museum, and one of her artworks will be sited within the museum itself.

For further information about all the TULCA exhibitions, screenings and events, please access http://www.tulcafestival.com/festival-2015 

If you have any queries about University of Galway’s role in TULCA, please feel free to contact Ann Lyons of the Community Knowledge Initiative by email.

Email Ann via ann.lyons@universityofgalway.ie

* The talks are free but booking is essential as places are limited. Reserve your place via BOOKING FORM