Galway Arts Centre and Nuns Island Theatre are currently exhibiting the Turner Prize winning installation from the Array Collective.
Curated by Galway Arts Centre director Megs Morey, the exhibition will be shown until October 2 in both venues, and is free to attend.
The Turner Prize is one of the best-known prizes for visual arts and is a highlight of the contemporary art calendar, awarded to artists from, or based in the UK, for an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work.
It is the first time the Array Collective, a group of 11 Belfast-based artists, has presented its award-winning work in Ireland.
The Array Collective has created collaborative projects in response to issues affecting Northern Ireland and issues around access to abortion, gay rights, mental health, gentrification and social welfare. The work on display in Galway is on loan from National Museums NI, which acquired the work for its permanent collection at the Ulster Museum.
Visitors to Nuns Island Theatre will enter a built installation of an Irish síbín – an illegal bar – titled, The Druthaib’s Ball. Audiences will be invited into an immersive experience reflecting the lively community hub of the síbin, a long-established tradition of an illegal bar and space of contradiction, dark humour, and craic.
A wider exhibition of works will be on display in Galway Arts Centre’s gallery space in Dominick Street where the installation will be accompanied by a programme of events with local social justice groups, artists and musicians to animate the síbín with traditional music sessions, dance, storytelling and song.
Galway Arts Centre’s director Megs Morley says the event marks a significant milestone for Galway Arts Centre.
“We’re excited to invite audiences from near and far to Galway to be the first to see this work in Ireland.”
For more information about the 2021 Turner Prize winning work from the Array Collective see https://www.galwayartscentre.ie.
The exhibition is on until October 1 and takes place across Nuns Island Theatre and Galway Arts Centre.
Opening hours Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm (closed Sundays ).
