TULCA Education Programme 2021
TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is delighted to showcase our 2021 Education Programme offerings.
TULCA is a festival celebrating contemporary visual art that takes place annually in November across Galway City and County. there’s nothing here but flesh & bone, there’s nothing more, curated by Eoin Dara, was the title of the 19th edition featuring works by 26 artistic contributors across 4 exhibition venues together with screenings, online workshops, and performances. This year, the Education Programme was thrilled to welcome a new Education Coordinator, Aoife Natsumi Frehan. In introducing Aoife’s vision, the programme explored its potential by building on existing formats, shaped by Aoife’s passion for facilitating arts experiences for children and young people that focus on their voices and ideas.
there’s nothing here but flesh & bone, there’s nothing more, was an aggregate of many unwieldy things including wet caresses, soft affection, immortal loves, necessary resistance, quiet rest, careful togetherness, boundless longing, abiding loss, honeyed scents, close correspondances, vocal exaltation enduring solidarity, unexpected intimacies, ecstatic whispers and deep tenderness. The festival sought to gently offer up some conversations around closeness and connection at a time when we were just beginning to gather again in proximity to one another. The work invited us to consider closeness and connection in many different ways - opening up such discourse through the use of scents, sounds, and visual stimuli.
As always, the TULCA Education Programme welcomed inquiring viewers of all ages to think and talk about visual art together. We aimed to encourage people to engage with the artwork and feed their curiosity, both in the space and online; celebrating the breadth of conversations sparked through the shared experience of looking together.
TULCA Education is a unique programme that focuses on looking at and responding to visual art in context. TULCA Education aims to welcome 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 Education works to continue this process of critical thinking by creating a space for dialogue and learning exchange drawing on lived experience to acknowledge that we all have our own set of visual codes, value systems, likes and dislikes.
Gallery Tours - Academic
This year we were delighted to be able to welcome learners back into the gallery space for facilitated, in-person Gallery Tours. This year, TULCA welcomed Primary, Secondary and Third level learners from Galway City and County. Tours took a learner-led conversational format that prioritised eliciting interpretations of the work from the viewer over imparting information to them. Participants were encouraged to ask questions and share their thoughts in a safe space where all answers are celebrated.
TULCA Education invited Primary students to think creatively and to remember that an inquisitive mind is a celebrated thing. Secondary students with focus on the leaving cert, were guided to consider the artwork in relation to its context within the exhibition venue and the festival as a whole. Education Officer Kate McSharry delivered third level tours tailored toward professional practice, in order to aid students' understanding of requirements for submission to an exhibition such as TULCA.
A video capturing the focus of the Education Tours can be found here.
Gallery Tours - Public
TULCA Education maintained its commitment to community development by offering family tours and public tours so creative people of all ages could explore the exhibition through experiences tailored to their needs. This allowed a more open and playful conversation catered to specific demographics.
Artist Talk Series
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 contributors include curator Eoin Dara and artist Mariah Garnett.
• Curator’s Talk: Eoin Dara
• Artist Talk 1: Harun Morrison
• Artist Talk 2: Renèe Helèna Browne
• Artist Talk 3: Mariah Garnett
County Schools Project
Two County Galway Schools; Scoil Chroí Naofa and Athenry Boys School, participated in our County Project this year through November 2021 into the New Year. The Project brief was designed by the TULCA board and managed by Aoife Natsumi Frehan. The workshop activities were inspired by the curator’s open call letter format and delivered in person in line with public health advice. Both projects were kindly supported by the Arts Office of Galway County Council.
And Somebody, Anybody, Nobody
Visual Artist and Printmaker Aoife Barrett was invited to work with 2 Primary school groups in Athenry, Co. Galway to respond to the curatorial brief. Aoife guided the students to write a letter to/from a place that they missed while Covid restrictions were in place. The underpinning theme of this letter being the sense of longing, the learners had the opportunity to express these through creative letter making. Starting with some paper folding, the students folded their letters into envelopes. After exploring the idea of mail art as another way of communicating, they used rubber stamps and printing techniques to create images inspired by their messages. Aoife brought a handmade letterbox, setting up a mini post office where the students stamped and posted their letters to TULCA.
Photographic documentation from the project can be viewed here
For more information and updates on the TULCA Education Programme visit: www.tulca.ie/education
TULCA Festival of Visual Arts
there’s nothing here but flesh & bone,
there’s nothing more
Curated by Eoin Dara
5 - 21 November 2021
Galway, Ireland
www.tulca.ie
Images: Jonathan Sammon and Soft Day Media, TULCA Gallery tours (stills from 4K video). Eoin Dara, 35mm B&W photograph, courtesy the artist. Mariah Garnett, The Pow’r of Life is Love 2021. Multi-channel video installation, 4K video (still), color, sound, 13 min. Image courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles. Images from Scoil Chroí Naofa project, 2022. Photo: Aoife Barrett.