Tulca - a fresh insight into a familiar world
The theme of this year’s Tulca Festival of Visual Arts, which opens this Friday and runs until November 24 in venues throughout Galway City and Tuam is Golden Mountain. Some 25 artists are taking part, exploring issues which range from Gaeltacht Civil Rights movement of the 1960s to the evolution of broadcast and satellite technology.
The curator of this year’s Tulca Festival is Dubliner Valerie Connor who wants to emphasise, through the theme of Golden Mountain, the important work artists do. “That is the work of representation of images and ideas, whether written or drawn or in film. The title Golden Mountain is a bit contrary, because a golden mountain can’t exist. But by talking enough about something we can conjure it up, and that’s a case of how powerful representation can be. It’s about underlining the importance of art in helping us know anything about where we are and why certain things happen.” Valerie, who is a freelance curator and a teacher on the Photography BA at Dublin Institute of Technology, has previously been the commissioner for Ireland’s participation at the international art bienniales in Venice and São Paulo. She is the Arts Council’s visual arts adviser and a member of the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. In curating Tulca she invited specific artists to take part and also sent out an open call, seeking submissions from interested artists. These were considered for inclusion.