NEUTRALITY IS a much discussed, often thorny political and historical subject in Ireland, but being ‘neutral’ and the ideas it implies is the subject of TULCA 2014.
TULCA, Galway city’s international festival of visual art, returns for its 12th year from Friday November 7 to Sunday 23, and this year’s theme is Neutral.
A total of 28 artists are taking part, including 25 from Ireland (among them Mark Garry, Oisin Byrne, Brendan Earle, Jeannette Doyle, Anita Groener, and Domestic Godless ), as well as three from abroad (Mark Wallinger, Bedwyr Williams, and Young-Hae Chang ).
Exhibitions will take place throughout the city. There will be guided tours, talks, seminars, and workshops, as well as an art-through-education programme which invites schools in the city and county to participate in TULCA.
The festival image is of the Principality of Sealand, a micronation located in the North Sea, comprising what was HM Fort Roughs, a former WWII Maunsell Sea Fort, off the coast of Suffolk, England.
Since 1967 the facility has been occupied by family and associates of Paddy Roy Bates, who claims Sealand is an independent sovereign state. He attempted to establish Sealand as a nation-state in 1975 with the writing of a national constitution and establishment of other national symbols.
This year’s TULCA curator is Aisling Prior, co-founder of the Galway Film Centre along with Barra de Bhaldraithe in 1988. Since then Ms Prior has served as director of the Sculptors’ Society of Ireland (now known as the VAI ), from 1991 to 1997; and was curator of Breaking Ground, the art commissioning programme in Ballymun, from 2000 to 2008. She has also curated international and national group shows.
