IT IS a time of change at the Galway Arts Centre. As 2021 draws to a close, plans are being made for 2022 which will see renovated buildings, a new online presence, challenging exhibitions, and even new approaches in how we experience events.
Spearheading this change will be the GAC’s new director and curator, Megs Morley, the artist, independent curator, public art commissioner, educator, and editor. Her ambition is to make the GAC, located on Dominick Street, a “vibrant and crucial centre” where artists, multiple communities, and the public can “reconnect with each other through art, with art as a platform for reconnecting”.
Megs brings considerable experience to the role. She has been the curatorial research fellow for arts and social justice for Create, at the National Development Agency for Collaborative Arts, Dublin. She has also contributed to the development of artist-led initiatives in Ireland for more than 15 years, through the development of The Artist-led Archive, which has documented more than 150 artist-led collectives and initiatives.
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Originally from Claremorris, Megs has long experience of the Galway arts scene. She was part of the collective, ENZO, with Andrea Fitzpatrick, Tom Flanagan, Kevin Flanagan, which did live arts events in Galway in 2007 and 2008. She was Public Arts Officer with the Galway City Council from 2008 to 2010; and curated the 2011 TULCA Festival of Visual Art.
“I have a real grá for Galway and an understanding of its capacity in terms of visual arts and audiences,” Megs tells me during our Tuesday afternoon interview. “As a practitioner, I’ve been working nationally and internationally for the last seven years, so for me, this is a massive opportunity to bring all the work I’ve been doing, with different museums and organisations, and to bring that back into the Galway Arts Centre.”
Art as dialogue
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So what kind of changes are in line for the GAC? A key idea for Megs is that art should be a dialogue, a meeting point, the start of an engagement between the artist who made it, and those who view it. This idea will fuel much of the 2022 programme.
“We are planning a public programme that invests in different types of knowledges,” says Megs, “not only in terms of the visual arts curated shows here, but also a public engagement programme bringing together different kinds of expertise, multi-disciplinary knowledge, and dialogues, and that opens up the programme to multiple perspectives, and creates the context for new thinking around the practices of art to a wider audience.”
This will involve developing a new website and logo for the GAC, and developing hybrid events “that will be live, and which others can access online, so it gives people the opportunity to come together in whatever way we can, given the times we are in”.
However, Megs is equally adamant that in-person shows will remain key. “As much as the digital world offers, nothing compares to experiencing an artwork in a gallery,” she says.
Exhibiting artists
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It is no surprise that the British based artists, The Otolith Group, will be exhibiting at the GAC in 2022, given Megs, along with Annie Fletcher, is co-editor of Xenogenesis, a major publication on the group from the Irish Museum of Modern Art,
Otolith is due to exhibit in the GAC next autumn, with the plan being to develop a series of reading and screening groups in advance of the actual exhibition itself.
“The groups will develop ways of accessing and thinking through the works over a long period of time, and we imagine those reading groups will be a hybrid event,” says Megs. “We’ll be exploring how to bridge that divide between the real and the digital, through those events.”
Another highlight of the 2022 programme will be Belfast’s Array Collective [pictured below], shortlisted for a Turner Prize this year. They are 11 people who work with LGBT+ rights and pro-Choice rights groups, and who bridge the gap between activism, protest, and instillation. “They create flamboyant and fun installations that are really interactive and performative,” says Megs.
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The programme itself will begin with a show in February. While no details will be released until the New Year, Megs says it will “explore different cultures and ways of thinking around the different communities in Galway, in a very contemporary and innovative way”.
Socially engaged art
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A connecting strand between these exhibitions is how socially engaged much of this art is - and socially engaged art is another key concern for Megs.
“I’m interested in the processes artists undertake to bring about cultural change,” she says. “The practices of socially engaged art are incredibly diverse, using all kinds of tools to engage with different communities to bring about a creative moment where cultural change is not only imagined, but becomes possible.
"That inspires me. It’s core to how I approach curating and working with audiences. It’s not just about putting on shows, it's about reaching out and creating moments of encounter, with each other, with the work, that we can learn from each other, and gather that knowledge together.”
Nuns Island
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One of the most exciting developments, not only for the GAC, but for the arts in Galway, will be the Nuns Island Theatre redevelopment, involving major works to the building at the back of the theatre itself.
“It has been unlived in for some time and is unused,” explains Megs. “The Galway City Council has received funding to redevelop it and that’s brilliant as we will have a much more accessible theatre space.
“All of this will play into a bigger vision for here, which is about becoming a more inclusive and diverse hub for the arts. We are limited in terms of capacity and space, so I hope we can develop more capacity to host more arts organisations, discussions, and workshops.
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“Over the next five years our plan for the GAC is to become a more established and resourced hub for the arts and become that home for the arts organisations that so many in the city want and need. I think Galway Arts Centre can be that, as it has been that historically.
“We’re the home of Galway Youth Theatre and Cúirt. TULCA began here and the Galway Arts Festival had connections here, everything came from this central point at some point or another. To grasp that legacy is something I’m really excited to do. We just need to realise what we are and what we can be.”
