TULCA 2018 Curator: Linda Shevlin

Curator Biography

TULCA is pleased to announce the 16th edition of the Festival titled 'Syntonic State' will be curated by independent Irish curator and artist Linda Shevlin 

‘Syntonic State’ takes dual cues from Galway’s merchant and mariner histories, and from the concept of nostalgia, with its cultural links to revelry and hedonism. The comfort we take in looking to the past – particularly during times of political and social crisis – forms the premise for multiple artistic responses.

Initially founded as a military base and urban site offering sanctuary to early colonists, Galway – derived from the Gaelic Gaillimh, meaning ‘Town of Strangers’ – ultimately became a settlement of foreign freemen. These historical developments arguably influenced the social and cultural diversity for which Galway has since become renowned. Thus, burgeoning trade routes and increased commerce influenced the evolution of Galway as a city, creating a newly-formed social stratum – that of the merchant classes.

Introduced in the seventeenth century, the term nostalgia denoted a common condition among Swiss mercenaries, who displayed symptoms of extreme homesickness, sentimental longing, or wistful affection for the past. Described then as a “disorder of the imagination”, nostalgia is now viewed as an emotion, rather than a physical condition. However, nostalgia does not always concern the past; it can be retrospective but also prospective. For many twentieth-century societies – including cultures that were globally displaced, marginalised from the cultural mainstream, or forged by eccentric traditions – a creative rethinking of nostalgia was not merely an artistic device, but a survival strategy. Such processes sought to make sense of the stateless condition, the impossibility of a homecoming, or a return to the halcyon days of a bygone era. This sense of grappling with displacement creates a desire to find one’s place in the world; to be ‘culturally syntonic’ – a psychology term denoting a person who is emotionally in harmony with their environment.

A contemporary wave of nostalgic revelry forms part of a continuum of nostalgic discourse that replicates itself until its signifiers exist without true recollection of the original. A certain aesthetic style speaks of a kind of nostalgia that is, even momentarily, entirely ahistorical. It is capable of being consumed independently of any emotional investment in the times and places to which the style alludes. In turn, nostalgia becomes a powerful political device. The fear and anger of those who feel most aggrieved by rapid change or loss continue to redefine the political landscape.

As stated by Russian scholar, Svetlana Boym, “the most common currency of the globalism exported all over the world is money and popular culture. Nostalgia too is a feature of global culture, but it demands a different currency.” Boym goes on to assert that the key terms defining globalism were in fact invented by poets and philosophers: “progress was coined by Immanuel Kant; the noun modernity is a creation of Charles Baudelaire; and virtual reality was first imagined by Henri Bergson, not Bill Gates”. Syntonic State will assemble a diverse array of artistic responses aimed at recontextualising history, as a vehicle for understanding the present moment.

Linda Shevlin
Curator 

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts
Syntonic State
Curated by Linda Shevlin
2 - 18 November 2018
Galway, Ireland