Galway’s Iarlaith Ni Fheorais to curate 2023 TULCA Festival
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Galway’s Iarlaith Ni Fheorais to curate 2023 TULCA Festival

TULCA is pleased to announce Iarlaith Ni Fheorais as the curator of the 21st edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts in 2023. Find out more here...

Iarlaith is a curator and writer based between the UK and Ireland. She is an independent producer with field:arts and works closely with artists Bridget O’Gorman and Ebun Sodipo. She recently curated Speech Sounds and was Curator-in-Residence at VISUAL Carlow as part of Carlow Arts Festival, and collaborated with Emma Wolf-Haugh on a new film commission for Ulysses 2.2. In previous roles she worked at Tate Modern and Britain as assistant curator of Young People’s Programmes and was the co-director of Basic Space from 2016-18.

Iarlaith has written on the work of Jesse Darling, Manuel Solano and Lorenza Böttner for Frieze, Burlington Contemporary, Viscose Journal and has an art and access column with Visual Arts News Sheet. She regularly contributes towards public programmes and lectures at Somerset House, Arts and Disability Ireland and Goldsmiths University.

Committed to improving access in the arts, she is currently developing an Arts Council England funded access toolkit for curators and producers. She is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design and is currently studying at the Dutch Art Institute.

Iarlaith
Iarlaith Ni Fheorais - photo by Tomás Eyzaguirre

"I’m delighted to be spending more time at home in Galway this year as the curator of the 21st edition of TULCA," said Iarlaith. "Growing up in Galway, TULCA was an early formative experience of art and I am honoured to have been invited to be part of this festival, especially following on from last year's powerful programme by Clare Gormely."

Every year TULCA commissions an Irish curator to develop a concept for the festival. Through a process of open call and invitation the curator selects national and international artists to respond to the theme. The 2023 festival programme is titled honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise with a theme that reflects on the West of Ireland as a landscape of medical infrastructure and control, inviting artists to consider their own regional relationship to medicine.

Taking its title from the description of an Irish folk cure, honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise gestures towards evolving notions of cure and care and their relationship to land. In a region transformed by holy wells, pilgrimages, folk cures, myths, factories and institutions - medicine, illness and disability are profoundly enmeshed into the fabric of this region and many others throughout the world. What narratives can be told that deepen our understanding of being in a body and a place?

"I look forward to learning and reflecting together with artists on how our lives have been shaped by medical and carceral histories in the West of Ireland and elsewhere, and I am excited to create a more accessible experience for artists and visitors," said Iarlaith.

TULCA 2023: honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise will run 3-19 November 2023 across multiple venues in Galway city and county. For more, please visit www.tulca.ie

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