Film Premiere: A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts and Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture with support from the French Embassy in Ireland present:

A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift

Film premiere
16 April 2021, 9pm

A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift is a new film commission curated by Kate Strain. Evolving through many iterations, A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift is a collaborative film by Austrian artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow and commissioned artists Ruby Wallis and Michaele Cutaya, Michelle Doyle, Ruth Le Gear, Marielle MacLeman, Naïmé Perrette, Liliane Puthod, Sara Sadik.

The film gathers contributions from each artist, through film, sculpture, music, sound and design, and uses collaged footage to investigate our access to nature through poetry. The codes that we as humans attempt to decipher - trees / alphabet / place, the inherent wisdom of the open air, and how to share it between practices and disparate geographic locations is a central theme of the film. Elisabeth von Samsonow is interested in the role of the White Goddess, and the Deep Ecology movement. Seeking to create poetry from the forest, she created an alphabet based on trees native to both Ireland and Austria.

"How to do an art project with people involved in different countries during a pandemic? The lockdown can also be taken as another word for territorialisation as everybody had to stay right in their place. Territorialisation, unintentional or intentional, means coming-back-to-one’s world, to reattach oneself to a segment of the world. Instead of all meeting together in the region of Galway, we started to rethink Ireland, where we did not go, in Lower Austria. We had wanted to give shape to our project through the old Irish alphabet of trees, Beth-Luis-Nion [also known as Ogham], which was widely commented on by Robert von Ranke-Graves in his voluminous book The White Goddess (1948). To this end we remapped the Land of the Goddesses, a highly diverse territory with vineyards, wood, field and bushland in Lower Austria. Filming in this context became a process of self-reflexion and awareness in relation to the perception of the land. Via the performances, the documentation of the land was freed from the historical stereotypes of ‘landscape’. The performative gaze on the land is more of a guerrilla type of solidarisation and reterritorialisation that can also be seen in the footage that was produced by the collaborating artists. A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift turned out to be a model of how to do journeys without moving.” Elisabeth von Samsonow

A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift is an example of total field operation - exploring the relationships between diverse spaces and places at a time when physical contact and travel has become impossible. Curated by Kate Strain, edited by Eavan Aiken and produced by Anne Mullee, the film will premiere online on Friday 16th April at 9pm.

Register for tickets here

Commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts as part of Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture.

www.tulca.ie

TULCA and Galway 2020 present a weekend programme of visual arts events

UnSelfing Weekend Programme

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 
Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture
16 - 18 April 2021

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts and Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture present a weekend programme of visual arts events to celebrate the UnSelfing programme.

UnSelfing is a programme of exhibitions, performances and encounters with visual art devised and delivered by TULCA as part of the visual arts programme for Galway 2020. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, TULCA have reimagined the programme to reflect the extraordinary events of the last year.

The UnSelfing weekend will present three specially commissioned projects to audiences. They include: film commission A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift. new book XVIII – Stories of TULCA and a broadcast-radio play and podcast Weather Gods.

The World Premiere of A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift airs online on Friday 16th of April at 9pm. The film, created by artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow and curator Kate Strain, involves commissioned pieces by artists from Ireland and France, with the support of the French Embassy in Ireland. Gathering contributions from each artist, through film, sculpture, music, sound and design, the film uses collaged footage to investigate our access to nature through poetry.

On Saturday 17th, TULCA launches a new publication, XVIII – Stories of TULCA exploring 18 years of the festival and its UnSelfing programme for Galway 2020. TULCA invited past curators of the festival to explore curating as caring in relation to their work with the festival, and chairs of the board to talk about the challenges of keeping TULCA going and growing. These new texts and conversations reveal an organisation committed to upholding the vision of curators and artists, while meaningfully connecting with the city and county of Galway through its board members, teams and many volunteers.

Sunday 18th April sees the launch of a new podcast radio play Weather Gods by Isadora Epstein. This specially commissioned work reimagines an event originally cancelled due to a red weather warning in April 2020. Weather Gods was first conceived as a live performance taking place for audiences on the Galway to Gort train. It is inspired by Iris Murdoch’s concept of 'unselfing', that demands we journey away from ourselves to be attentive to the world, to be curious about the people, places and ideas that surround us.
 
Speaking about the project Josephine Vahey co-chairperson of TULCA discussed these challenging changes “The fact that our team have delivered the complete UnSelfing programme, reimagined despite the pandemic, is a testament to the commitment to arts practices and the experience of our audiences that unites all the work TULCA does.”
 
Galway 2020 Head of Programme Marilyn Gaughan-Reddan said about the TULCA and Galway 2020 partnership, “TULCA have delivered a truly wonderful programme of visual arts events for Galway 2020, many new relationships and partnerships have been created which will last long into the future, our sincere thanks to the team, the board and the artists for their ongoing resilience in delivering such a beautiful reimagined programme”.
 
The weekend programme of events will take place on the 16-18 April 2021.

Visit www.tulca.ie for more information.

FILM PREMIERE

A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift
Film Premiere
16 April 2021, 9pm

A Visit, A Ceremony, A Gift is a new film commission curated by Kate Strain.

The film focuses on the research and practice of Austrian artist and philosopher Elisabeth Von Samsonow who has been inspired by the role of the White Goddess, and the Deep Ecology movement. Elisabeth von Samsonow uses an alphabet based on trees native to both Ireland and Austria, to create poetry and uncover its’ origin in the woods.

Participating artists: Marielle MacLeman, Ruth Le Gear, Ruby Wallis and Michaële Cutaya, Michelle Doyle, Liliane Puthod, Naïmé Perrette, Sara Sadik.

Register for tickets here

BOOK LAUNCH AND PANEL DISCUSSION

XVIII - Stories of TULCA
Book launch and panel discussion
17 April 2021, 6.30pm

XVIII - Stories of TULCA marks TULCA’s 18th anniversary through a series of new writing commissions, photo-essays and reflections and documents the TULCA UnSelfing Programme for Galway 2020.

Featuring contributions from: Aideen Barry, Austin Ivers, Clíodhna Shaffrey, Deirdre O’Mahony, Dominic Thorpe, Elisabeth von Samsonow, Gavin Murphy, George Bolster, Gregory McCartney, Helen Carey, Isadora Epstein, James Harrold, Josephine Vahey, Kerry Guinan, Linda Shevlin, Louise Manifold, Lucy Elvis, Marilyn Gaughan Reddan, Mary Cremin, Matt Packer, Megs Morley, Michael Dempsey, Michelle Browne, Sarah Browne, Sarah Searson, Susanna Galbraith, Valerie Connor, Áine Phillips.

Register for tickets here

PODCAST AND RADIO PLAY

Weather Gods - Reprised
Podcast and Radio Play
18 April 2021

Weather Gods is written and performed by Isadora Epstein, who, accompanied by musicians Davy Kehoe, Daniel McAuley and Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh and artist Stéfane Béna Hanly created a performance combining a mythological weather report with a train trip out West on the Great Western Railway. With live musical performance from the titular mythical weather gods, and featuring original scores and some familiar favourites, this work is placed somewhere between an art performance and a memorable piece of theatre.

Register for tickets here

TULCA Education shares the public outcomes of its 2020 programme

TULCA Education Programme 2020 (extended)

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is delighted to share the online educational resources and activities with parents, teachers and students of its extended 2020 Education Programme.

TULCA is a festival celebrating contemporary visual art, that takes place annually in November across Galway City and County. The Law is a White Dog, curated by Sarah Browne, was the title of the 18th edition and featured work by 23 artistic contributors across 4 exhibition venues together with screenings, workshops and performance events. The Education Programme has been reimagined to allow us to deliver it to you safely online.

TULCA's most recent festival, The Law is a White Dog, reflects on the implications of past and current legal systems and how they influence our thinking and attitude. In particular it looks at how work made by artists responds to categorisation and labelling in society and how this work can challenge us to reconsider any assumptions we made or things we may have accepted without questioning. The work invites us to begin conversations that can make us feel uncomfortable. Societal issues concerning equality, status, power, hierarchy, accessibility, and climate change underpin the work in this year’s festival. Who do we include or exclude when we communicate through language and the spoken word? How do we agree on ownership? Where are our boundaries? Does status give us rights to knowledge? Who decides what is right and just in society? Who is responsible for the care of our planet? All challenging questions that we are asked to consider as we engage with the work in the festival programme.

As always, the TULCA Education Programme welcomes inquiring viewers of all ages to think and talk about visual art together. We aim to encourage people to engage with the artwork, feed their curiosity and view the work online and avail of our education programme videos and activities. All types of conversations are sparked through the shared experience of looking together.

The TULCA Education Programme is a unique programme that focuses on looking at and responding to visual art. It is about reaching out and engaging with schools and the wider community to create an increased awareness and a shared understanding of the visual arts. The programme engages a process of slow looking, reflection and response. Artists probe, question and investigate topics of social concern. TULCA’s Education Programme is designed to continue this process of critical thinking by creating a space for dialogue and learning exchange. It draws on individual personal experience and acknowledges that we all have our own set of visual codes, value systems, likes and dislikes.

Primary Videos and Activity Sheets

Primary school children can access online video content either at home or in their classrooms. Through these videos our Education Team introduce the work by 4 of the exhibiting artists; Rajinder Singh, Kevin Mooney, Rossella Biscotti and Sibyl Montague. Each video has two bespoke activities designed by Education Coordinator Dee Deegan that can be downloaded through the TULCA website. The primary videos are presented by Dee Deegan, Judith Bernhardt and Kate McSharry. Education documentation by Soft Day Media.

These creative and engaging activities include drawing, painting, mapmaking and sculpture. Age recommendations for children appear on each activity sheet. Students are encouraged to share the work made in response to these activities through email or on our social media platforms.

Primary school videos and activity sheets can be accessed here.

Leaving Certificate Art Appreciation Video Tour

Post primary students can access a guided video tour that has been created for students studying art for their Leaving Certificate to help them prepare for the gallery question of the Leaving Certificate Art History and Appreciation Exam. There is a resource pack and worksheet available to download that accompanies this video resource. This video tour and resources were designed by Education Coordinator Dee Deegan who is a qualified second level teacher with excellent knowledge and understanding of curriculum requirements at this level. Education documentation by Soft Day Media.

Leaving Certificate Art Appreciation video, resource pack and worksheet can be accessed here.

Higher Education Resources

We are delighted to be able to share all the public outcomes of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts exhibition and online educational resources of its 2020 festival programme.

Higher education students can access the exhibition online.

• Selected photographic documentation by Ros Kavanagh is available here.

• Three offsite artworks are documented here.

• Video documentation of the entire programme, edited by Jonathan Sammon, can be watched here.

Artist Talks

Presented in partnership with GMIT Centre for Creative Arts and Media.

The Artist Talk Series hosted in association with our partners at the Centre for Creative Arts and Media GMIT is available to watch  online. Featured artist contributors include Vukašin Nedeljković, Sibyl Montague and Saoirse Wall.

• Artist Talk 1: Vukašin Nedeljković
• Artist Talk 2: Sibyl Montague
• Artist Talk 3: Saoirse Wall

Edited, captioned versions of these talks are available here.

Professional Practice

Our education team member Kate McSharry is featured in a ‘Professional Practice’ video developed to aid third level students' understanding of requirements for submission to an exhibition like TULCA. Kate also gives an overview of the festival, the role of the curator, how the work is selected and also shares her own experience of working with TULCA as a volunteer/intern and now as a valued member of the education team. Education documentation by Soft Day Media.

Professional Practice video for emerging artists can be accessed here.

County Schools Projects

Two county Galway schools; Clarinbridge National School and Calasanctius College, participated in our County Schools Project throughout November and December 2020. The project brief was designed by Education Coordinator Dee Deegan and workshop activities were inspired by the themes underpinning the festival. All workshops were delivered virtually. Both of these projects are kindly funded through the Arts Office of Galway County Council.

How Far Can Your Voice Carry?

Writer, poet and dramatist Pete Mullineaux worked with a group of Transition Year students and their teacher Alan Caden of Calasanctius College, Oranmore, Co. Galway to deliver a poetry workshop titled How Far Can Your Voice Carry? Pete facilitated these poetry workshops remotely using Microsoft Teams. The stimulus for the workshops came from the film The Undercurrent by Rory Pilgrim, one of the TULCA festival contributors. Societal issues concerning equality, status, power, hierarchy, accessibility, and climate change feature throughout the work in this year’s festival. The underpinning theme relating to climate change provided the stimulus for this project. Students wrote poems in response to Rory’s film and did audio recordings of the poems to add a performative element to the work.

Words that Change our Ways of Seeing

The title of this County Schools Project that took place in Clarinbridge National School is Words That Change Our Way of Seeing and it focused on the theme of climate change. Writer, poet and dramatist Pete Mullineaux collaborated with visual artist Kim Sharkey to facilitate this poetry/drawing workshop for the sixth class students and their teacher Timmie Glavey of Clarinbridge National School. Pete began the discussion on climate change with students and in particular explored what changes they can make in our lives to help save our planet. Students wrote poems individually and collaboratively based on their interaction and discussions with Pete. Kim then brought the students through two processes; bookmaking and illustrating. Students created their own accordion books and developed ideas for illustrations to accompany their poems. Images of the work will be shared online through the TULCA website.

For more information and updates on the TULCA Education Programme visit: www.tulca.ie/education

TULCA and Galway 2020 launch arts education programme that explores creative thinking

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts and Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture present:

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 
Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture
February - April 2021
Galway City and County

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts and Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture present Create Dangerously; an arts education programme that empowers learners and teachers through exploring creative thinking and creative making using a blend of art and philosophy.

Three Galway schools Clontuskert NS, Ballinasloe, Cregmore NS, Cregmore and Coláiste Iognáid (The ‘Jes’), Galway, have been selected for this stage of the pilot programme. This week each classroom will receive a new art film commissioned by TULCA especially for the project. They will respond to this work through structured dialogues, and art making activities to create their own own ‘creativity manifesto’ and an exhibition that they’ll share with their school community and post online. Editions of these works will become permanent parts of the Create Dangerously programme which opens to schools nationally after this pilot.

TULCA education partner Curo, who designed this project, will facilitate sessions in school and provide CPD to the participating teachers. Students will experiment with creative expression, explore why creativity is important and articulate what being creative means to them. Active mentoring and CPD workshops will empower participating teachers to integrate elements of the project into their teaching practice.

New artworks, A March in March, by Donal McConnon, I Got Power, by Maeve Clancy and My Island by Emma Zukovic will premier in schools this week with participating classes kicking off their creative responses after the Easter holidays.

Artist Maeve Clancy said “This project offers the unusual opportunity to see how a piece of my work is interpreted and presented to children in a school setting. Being able to talk with the teacher and members of Curo as they develop the learning is an absolute treat for an artist. The project is much more far reaching than I originally understood. I’m really delighted to be involved and flattered to be asked to contribute.”

Jo Vahey of TULCA Festival said: "TULCA is thrilled to be piloting Create Dangerously, a project that will enhance the creative lives of young people and one that will make a lasting impact on the schools, teachers and learners it connects with at a time when connection is more important than ever."

Create Dangerously is presented as part of UnSelfing, a programme of visual art created by TULCA for the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture year. Marilyn Gaughan Reddan, Head of Programme said “We are delighted to be back working in schools and Create Dangerously offers children and teachers a real opportunity for meaningful interactions and engagement with the artist. The TULCA education programme is exceptional and we are really looking forward to the impact that this will have both in the school community and indeed within the overall programme.”

This project is facilitated by TULCA education partner Curo, who focus building thinking skills through philosophical dialogues and creative activities.

More information and updates on the project are available here.

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Donal McConnon (aka T h e C u r l y O r g a n) is a kind of artist/composer/producer who has for one month successfully merged his everyday experiences with record production (4 EPs (2017), who regularly has conversations with strangers through a non-verbal musical binary (Do You Speak Bell? (2018/2019) and has developed an all-encompassing live performance making use of hand-drawn visuals and guided meditations. During Lockdown II, Donal turned his attention to podcast production. Weaving together Whatsapp voice messages from people in his community and the recorded music of local artists, the result was three wholly unique sonic meditations on topics such as Fear and Enlightenment.

Image: Donal McConnon, A March in March, 2021. Still from HD video

Maeve Clancy creates work for children and adults using cut paper, pop up, story and drawings. She has worked on music videos for singer Lisa Hannigan, mounted solo exhibitions and writes both fictional, documentary and historical comics. Past commissions include a pop up book for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 international advertising campaign, a large scale installation at a National Trust property in Somerset, UK  and a solo exhibition at Corte Eremo, Mantova, Italy. 

She was an invited artist at Dublin WorldCon 2019, a large international science fiction convention and designed 'Sruth na Teanga', an immersive theatre experience as part of  Galway 2020 City of Culture. Recent commissions include a graphic novel about Michael Davitt, a series of animations for Cruinniú na nÓg 2020 shown on RTE and a cut paper installation for An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk in December 2020. Current ongoing work involves telling the story of Rouba and Noura Merzah, two recent refugees from Syria now living in Ireland.

Image: Maeve Clancy, I Got Power, 2021. Still from animation 

UnSelfing is a programme of visual art exhibitions, performances and encounters commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts for Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic the remainder of the programme has been further reimagined and repositioned with projects taking place in April 2021.

For more information and updates visit: www.tulca.ie

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UnSelfing is a programme of visual art exhibitions, performances and encounters commissioned by TULCA Festival of Visual Arts for Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic the remainder of the programme has been further reimagined and repositioned with projects taking place in April 2021.

For more information and updates visit: www.tulca.ie

Image: Donal McConnon, A March in March, 2021. Still from HD video

TULCA 2021: Open Call

TULCA 2021: Open Call

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is pleased to announce details of its 2021 Open Call curated by Eoin Dara; there’s nothing here but flesh and bone, there’s nothing more.

A short missive from the curator:

A chara,

I am writing to you from the east coast of Scotland, thinking about the west coast of Ireland — a place I have not been able to visit for quite some time. I have resisted writing this for weeks now, hoping (perhaps naively) that this delay would allow me to speak with some clarity about what a project such as TULCA might look like this Autumn in Galway. I have been worrying about how to state my intentions, how to lay out my table, how best to project an air of assured confidence and authority in this time of unwilling dormancy. The truth is though, in these circumstances, I don’t have a concise curatorial statement to make. My thoughts remain as unfixed as the world around us, and performing some kind of professional fiction here would be deceitful. 

In the winter of 2019 I pitched an embryonic idea to the board at TULCA centring around a question posed within a poem by Ocean Vuong. The question was ‘Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here?’

I didn’t know that in a few short months physical intimacy would become an impossibility for so many of us. I didn’t know we would then collectively be entering a year devoid of touch. I shelved this idea for much of 2020, thinking it a little obvious, gauche even, to pursue such a focus after the pandemic. And yet here we are in 2021, still locked within it in a state of slow, unknowing ongoing. Still sheltering in place. Still seeking out new ways to enact intimacy, trying to affirm something like touch through its negation. Still trying to connect, to care, to love, to grieve, and to resist, when all the means of gathering that previously sustained us are (literally) out of reach.

So whilst we remain in this untethered place, far from any space of clarity or assurance, I am writing to say that I am still obsessively thinking about touch. Do we touch each other just to prove we’re still here? In what way? Where is here? Is here enough anymore? What do we want to touch again? What do we want to let go of? These are some of the questions I hope will guide my thinking in the coming months, with the help of other artists, writers and kindred spirits as part of TULCA 2021.

For now, this morning, I’m listening repeatedly to a song by George Michael advocating for casual sex in public spaces (I know you want to but you can’t say yes). I’m misremembering a line from a Jamaica Kincaid essay where she describes a fritillaria flower as smelling like the armpits of all the people you’ve ever loved. I’m thinking of a poem by Caspar Heinemann where he crafts an image of loving arms as ‘a small architecture of warm blood.’

Of course I’m thinking of all these things in an act of longing. I’m writing this hopeful missive from my own empty architecture, towards a place of fullness and imagined excess we might fill together in an inoculated future.

I need to draw this note to a close, as the skin around my thumb and forefinger has started bleeding with bright anxiety. Perhaps I’ll be able to stop this leakage by October. Perhaps not. Perhaps it is a good reminder of what moves through me and allows me to move through.

’til then, in solidarity, and with warm blood, 

Eoin

TULCA 2021 Open Call

TULCA is curated through direct invitation and an Open Call process. The final selection of artworks will be based on thematic connection, artistic quality, and feasibility. Selections are made by the curator in consultation with the TULCA producer.

Full details on the Open Call Process & Guidelines can be found here.


TULCA Festival of Visual Arts
there’s nothing here but flesh and bone,
there’s nothing more
Curated by Eoin Dara
November 2021
Galway, Ireland

www.tulca.ie

Image: Isobel Neviazsky, Two Figures 2021. Graphite on paper. Courtesy the artist.