Join us at Galway Arts Centre from 6pm on Thursday Dec 18th for a curatorial introduction to group exhibition ‘Still, We Gather’ with Director and Curator of Galway Arts Centre Megs Morley, followed by conversation with the Dún Emer Collective & Áine Phillps.

Free. No booking required

The Dún Emer Eastside Collective is a group of East Galway women who came together under the direction of Áine Phillips in response to the Decade of Centenaries “Reflections” project in 2023 to create a trilogy of feminist memorial banners. The group’s name references the influential crafts studio The Dún Emer Guild founded in 1902 by Evelyn Gleeson and sisters Elizabeth and Lily Yeats whose innovative designs and diverse hand sewn artefacts inspired the contemporary banners created for this project. The members of the group are Áine Phillips, Helen Flynn, Helen Monaghan, Petra Bhreatnach, Rowena Carr, Anita Dillon, Clare Smyth, Demelza Lynn, Lizzy Dargle, Marielle MacLeman and Sona Smedkova.

Áine Phillips is an artist based in Galway who has been making installations, art films and performances since the late 80s. She creates live performance, installation and video works for multiple contexts: public space, social events, galleries, theatres, museums, biennales and film festivals. Her work incorporates socially engaged practice and she often works with communities of place and or interest, including many collaborations with Irish and international artists. Curating, writing and teaching are also part of her diverse practice. Phillips’ practice speaks to themes of women’s lived experience, women’s autobiographical histories, feminism, community and social justice. For over 35 years she has consistently addressed these topics, especially the histories of incarceration of women in Magdalen Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes and Industrial schools in Ireland. She sees her varied practice as a form of social art activism.

Image: Calling the Bird Ancestors (2025), Dervla Baker, Marilyn Lennon & Andy Ingamells