CITIES ARE dying. Even as more and more of people live in cities, and are dependent on them for their livelihoods, cities are becoming too expensive to live in, where the productive urban economy has disappeared.
Such a situation has resulted in big cities becoming brand's competing with other almost identical brands for the same round of sporting and cultural spectacles, striving to assert a distinctiveness that is the same as everyone else’s. The city is its own post-urban museum, a museum to the memory of what cities once were.
This is the view of the award winning independent curator and artist Daniel Jewesbury, who is curating this year's TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, now in its 14th year, which opens on Friday November 4, and formally runs Saturday 5 to Sunday 20, in various locations around the city and county.
The festival's theme is The Headless City, and Jewesbury has posed the question to this year's participating artists, “What’s happened to our cities?", which they will explore through exhibitions, events, performances, discussions, film screenings, and provocations.
"I’m going to be bringing some incredibly talented, insightful artists, together to ask just how we can live in our cities in the future," says Jewesbury. "I’ve been researching this for several years now, in locations all around Europe, and I’m really looking forward to seeing Galwegians’ reactions to what I think will be some challenging, exciting, thought-provoking ideas.”
Artists taking part are Sol Archer [a video piece by whom is above], Miranda Blennerhassett, Rick Buckley, Jane Butler, Rachael Campbell-Palmer, Conlon/O’Reilly/Ross, Liam Crichton, Sinead Curran, Adrian Duncan, Ian Hamilton Finlay with Leslie Edge, Sorsha Galvin, Helena Hamilton, Michelle Hannah, Anna Homburg, Helen Horgan, Helen Hughes, Patrick Jolley, Loitering Theatre, Julie Merriman, James Moran, Doireann Ní Grioghair, Aisling O'Beirn, Mark Orange, Martina O’Brien, Dave Madigan and Meadhbh O'Connor, Úna Quigley, Jane Rainey, Fred Robeson, Martin Sharry and Mhairi Sutherland, Two Ruins, Diane Vincent, Lee Welch, and Tony White.
