Galway Arts Centre is excited to announce its participation in “Thursday Lates,” a six-month pilot programme developed in partnership with Galway City Council to extend their opening hours to provide greater access to arts and culture in Galway City outside of traditional working hours. Starting 3rd of April, the Centre will remain open every Thursday evening from 5pm to 9pm, for a six-month period.

A series of free, family-friendly events will also run on Thursday evenings as part of “Thursday Lates” to supplement their regular exhibition schedule, with a range of workshops, tours and talks aiming to heighten your experience of the exhibition and give more people a chance to engage with the art.

Two back-to-back events will take place on Thursday June 26th.

First, Join Treasa O’Brien and Kate McSharry in the Galway Arts Centre from 5-7pm for History Now: Reclaiming Space in a Changing World. We need to remember and engage with our history, so as not to repeat it. The commemoration of problematic historical figures is a worthy discussion; we can envisage the possibilities for now and the future. Through positive discussion and exploration using an array of materials such as collage and clay, participants will workshop a new public sculpture, reimagining or replacing the Christopher Columbus commemoration at Spanish Arch. Considering protest and collective memory in public space, we will explore how imagined spaces resist silencing. What would we like to commemorate and celebrate? Materials will be provided, though participants are encouraged to bring along any objects or materials they consider to be useful.

Following this event, there will be a screening of Understory directed by Treasa O’Brien at 7.30pm in the Galway Arts Centre, accompanied by a live score with musicians Amelian Donegan and Philip Fogarty. Understory is a surreal post-human film imagining the perspectives of fungi, trees, animal spirits, old pipes, a vape and a cigarette butt, inspired by the philosophies of indigenous animism, vibrant matter, new materialism and speculative realism. Understory was shot in Connemara while on residency at Interface Inagh, supported by Galway City Council. Duration: 20 mins

For more information on these events, see www.galwayartscentre.ie.