Since 2002, TULCA Festival of Visual Art has captivated Galway city with an eclectic display of Contemporary Art. TULCA is a multi-venue, artist-centered festival of contemporary art that works through a national and international network of artists, audiences, curators and art critics to present innovative exhibitions that provoke and energise audiences into the world of the Visual Arts.
Supported by British Council, this year's 15th edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Art – titled They Call Us The Screamers – features artworks by Irish and international artists that are presented across six venues: Galway Arts Centre, 126 Artist Run Gallery, Nun’s Island Theatre, Connacht Tribune Print Works, Barnacles Hostel, and University Hospital Galway. Participating artists from or based in the UK include: Sam Basu and Liz Murray, Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, Plastique Fantastique, Florian Roithmayr (with Meredith Monk) and Lucy Stein.
The exhibition takes its reference from a book written by Jenny James, published by Caliban Books in 1980. The book is an account of Atlantis, the commune she established a few years earlier in the Gaeltacht village of Burtonport, County Donegal – promoting an approach of de-programming from the modern world through therapeutic self-development and environmental self-sufficiency. The book is also a response to the controversies and scandals that embroiled the commune during their first years in Ireland, following accusations of cultish behaviour, kidnapping, and physical abuse. The members of the commune were collectively nicknamed ‘The Screamers’ in a 1976 Sunday World article, referring to their practice of primal scream therapy – an adapted form of psychotherapy developed by Dr Arthur Janov that sought to re-enact the traumas of modern upbringing and thereby reverse the neurosis that follows in later life.
They Call Us The Screamers provides the title and thematic compass for the exhibition, with artworks that are orientated to ideas held together by the historical episode. They include ideas of withdrawal and selfhood, autonomy and self-sufficiency, voice and neurosis and future culture and community. They Call Us The Screamers is an exhibition that does not aim to illustrate Atlantis in Ireland, nor attempt to redress their controversy. Instead, the story gives way to a broader framework of practice-related ideas that develop from the countercultural psychology of the 1970s, seeking to reclaim an alternative future for self and society in today’s perspective.
Curated by: Matt Packer
Opening Events: Free - No Booking Required
Friday 3rd November:
18:00: Performance by Plastique Fantastique, Nun’s Island Theatre
19:00: Official opening, Connacht Tribune Print Works
21:00: After Party: Electric
Saturday 4th November:
13:00: Performance by Vicky Langan and Maximilian Le Cain, GAC
14:00: Performance by Plastique Fantastique, Nun’s Island Theatre
