Galway 2020 will open its doors to the public this Friday as it hosts Open House, a cultural showcase as a part of Culture Night. This is the first in a series of Open House events that Galway 2020 will be hosting in the coming months.
Running from 6pm to 10.30pm, a number of talks and events will be held in the Merchant’s Road base of Galway 2020. The public are invited to pop in and experience a taste of community culture, spend the whole evening or simply drop in for a cuppa and a chat.
On the night, Galway 2020 will pilot a new project ‘We need to talk about’, which is a public engagement project aimed at getting people talking about a series of topics that we should discuss as a society, but don’t. As a part of the project, people are being encouraged to bring to the table any topics that concern them - these topics will ultimately inform the project. On the night there will be suggestion boxes available where people can post the topics that concern them.
Join Melting Pot Luck at 6pm as they perform African stories, music and dance which will bring the audience on a journey through different cultures reflecting the diversity in our community. Melting Pot Luck is a community group with residents of direct provision centres and members of the local community in Galway City. Its aim is to promote integration of people of all tribes by organising pot luck dinners and cultural events.
‘Digital Space’ offers the opportunity to experiment in Virtual Reality (VR ) and Augmented Reality (AR ). See some of the works created at Cruinniú na nÓg, including ‘Virtually Here’ one of the projects The Immersive Classroom, a series of educative events and exhibits. ‘Digital Space’ runs from 7pm to 9.30pm.
The Little Cinema will transform one of Galway 2020’s small rooms into an even littler cinema for Culture Night. They will screen the 10 films from this year’s Little Cinema Galway & Galway City of Film 48 Hour Challenge, all of which were made over the course of one weekend in June. The Little Cinema will run from 7pm to 9.30pm, with visitors invited to come and go throughout the evening.
Galway 2020’s Small Towns Big Ideas (STBI ) programme has been igniting community creativity and conversations in recent months, with 52 projects supported across the county and city. From 7pm, three of these projects will host a series of short talks about their projects, the impact they’ve had on their communities, and their hopes for their projects in the future.
STBI’s Hear Our Voice is a Galway Autism Partnership (GAP ) project and Aisling from GAP will talk about her work on the project, its role in raising awareness and supporting families and individuals.
ARD Family Resource Centre in Doughishka is running a series of STBI’s Cultural Cafe evenings and Frank and Sola from the centre will talk about diversity in their community, how the community works together and what being European means to them.
Paul and Monica from the STBI supported Furnace Festival in Sliabh Aughty will share their thoughts on the value of traditional skills as a way of celebrating place and bringing the community together.
At 7.45pm, Loretta Ní Ghabháin will host an informal discussion about the Irish language and the different ways in which we communicate through it. At 8.15pm, Tommy and Pádraic Keane will discuss and demonstrate the uilleann pipes, its evolution and styles. At 9pm, Galway 2020 will welcome musicians Amy Rose and Eoin Hardiman to play a gig. They will be followed at 9.30pm with a trad session from Tommy Keane, Pádraic Keane and friends, who will close out Open House.
“We are delighted to be hosting the first of a series of Open House events in our base on Merchant’s Road for Culture Night. This is all about meeting new people, beginning new conversations and continuing others,” said Craig Flaherty, Galway 2020 Cultural Producer.
“Galway 2020 is delighted to host an Open House for Culture Night, a national celebration of arts, heritage and culture. We look forward to welcoming everyone and we hope that you enjoy meeting and chatting to our team and learning more about Galway 2020,” says Head of Programme, Marilyn Reddan Gaughan.
