Proposal for municipal gallery at Galway harbour

By Dara Bradley

An ambitious plan to create a municipal visual art gallery space at Galway Harbour – that would be twice the size of the Black Box Theatre – has been submitted to city planners.

Representatives of the visual arts community in the city have brought forward detailed plans for the creation of Cube, a 20,000 square feet temporary structure that would be used to attract world class artists to exhibit in Galway.

The Cube is essentially a ‘flat-pack’ structure that could be constructed within two months and operational in five months – the backers of the project are optimistic that subject to getting the go-ahead and funding, the gallery could be up and running within a year.

The structure would cost €950,000 to construct and the programming of art for a five year period would be €4.5 million, according to visual artist Aideen Barry, who is one of the proponents of Cube.

It would be a joint venture and funding would come from various sources including Galway City Council, Arts Council, Culture Ireland, National Lottery as well as central Government and European Union funds. Educational stakeholders such as GMIT and NUIG would also contribute as well as private funding.

The site where the large oil tankers used to be at Galway Harbour has been identified as a potential location for the gallery, which backers say would attract world-renowned artists to the city which will in turn

A section in the Draft Galway City Development Plan 2011-2017 “recognises that there remains a deficit of culture and arts infrastructure in the city” and the Plan also commits to “the development of a municipal arts gallery in the city”.

Ms Barry says this submission and proposal is in part a response to these sections of the Draft Plan. “For every €1 spent on the Arts, the exchequer gets €2 in return. This has the potential to totally revitalise that area (Docks) of the city, boosting hotels, shops and restaurants. The city of Reykjavik, Iceland is no bigger than Galway and has a similar population.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune