Announcement: Contributors to TULCA 2025

 

Announcement: Contributors to TULCA 2025

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is pleased to announce the contributors to its 23rd edition, Strange lands still bear common ground, curated by Beulah Ezeugo.

Festival dates: 7-23 November 2025

Contributors to TULCA 2025
Saoirse Amira Anis, Mourad Ben Amor, Susannah Bolton, Caroline Mac Cathmhaoil, Marie Farrington, Bojana Janković and Nessa Finnegan, Caoimhín Gaffney, Mair Hughes, Francis Jones, Emily Joy, Jericho Mars, Bint Mbareh, Hussein Mitha, Kate Morrell, Thais Muniz, Tom O’Dea, Seán O’Riordan, Enya Moore and Kate O’Shea, PATHOS, Abel Shah, Durre Shahwar, Peter Tresnan, Chris Zhongtian Yuan, and Jess Zamora-Turner.

This year’s edition of TULCA began with, and was inspired by, the undated and anonymously drawn Burmese Map of the World, a speculative artefact shaped by traces of Medieval European cartography. It depicts a teardrop-shaped island rising from the ocean, with smaller islands drifting below, detached from the mainland. A horizontal green line marks the Himalayas: above lies the mythical land of seven lakes and Mount Meru; below, abstracted colourful forms mark the land the mapmaker believed strangers came from. Like other ancient maps, it casts the periphery as both dangerous and alluring, and implies that the unknown can also signify the opening up of possibilities.

Strange lands still bear common ground responds both to this image and to the reverberations of our global crisis of capital, which displaces people and fragments worlds. It partitions us from communities, ecosystems, and inherited knowledge systems, leaving us adrift and ambivalent toward those who arrive from elsewhere. So, reorientation serves as the festival’s guiding theme, and is understood as the act of unsettling assumed stances, turning again, and opening the possibility of contact.

The festival presents a programme of artworks, film screenings, and live performances by artists and collaborators from Ireland and beyond. It unfolds across sites in Galway, extends through the airwaves, and reaches further still with a satellite venue in New York.

Beulah Ezeugo: ‘This year, TULCA engages artists whose practices move across personal, physical, and psychic boundaries. Much of the work documents situated encounters with land, the sea, the creature, the stranger, the here and the elsewhere. The programme aims to create space to reconsider inherited structures of power, drawing attention to the residues that surface at points of intense contact and to the possibilities that arise when conventional ways of separating and categorising are unsettled.’

The 23rd edition of TULCA will be presented across multiple venues in Galway city from 7–23 November 2025, including the TULCA Gallery at Hynes Building, Galway Arts Centre, 126 Artist-run Gallery, the James Mitchell Geology Museum, University Gallery, the Zoology and Marine Biology Museum, ATU Library, the O’Donoghue Centre, ATU Wellpark Road, FLIRT FM, Electric Galway, and 334 Broome Street, New York.

A series of exhibitions, public events, screenings, performances, and encounters will accompany Strange lands still bear common ground, with the full festival programme being announced on Monday, 20 October 2025.

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is supported by The Arts Council, Galway City Council, and Galway County Council.

For media inquiries, contact: comms@tulca.ie

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts
Strange lands still bear common ground
Curated by Beulah Ezeugo
7-23 November 2025
Galway, Ireland

Image: Pure Designs

 

TULCA Volunteer Programme | 7-23 November 2025

 

TULCA Volunteer Programme | 7-23 November 2025

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is now accepting applications for its 2025 Volunteer Programme.

Volunteering with TULCA Festival of Visual Arts offers direct access to the inner workings of Ireland’s leading festival of contemporary art. Our volunteers are an essential part of the team, supporting the presentation of ambitious exhibitions and live events across Galway City and County.

As a volunteer, you will gain exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the dynamic world of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts. This is a unique opportunity to acquire hands-on experience, engage with talented artists and industry professionals, and immerse yourself in contemporary visual arts. Whether you are eager to learn, develop new skills, or simply seek inspiration, TULCA offers the perfect environment to do so.

Commitment: Invigilators are asked to commit to at least two shifts during the festival. Let us know your areas of interest, and we will make every effort to accommodate your preferences.

Sign Up Here

Gallery & Event Invigilators 2025

Every year our invigilators form a core part of our team. Participating in the TULCA Volunteer Programme gives you first-hand working experience of the time, energy and ambition that goes into the production and running of a contemporary visual art festival. We seek to provide an enriching, educational, and uplifting time for all of our volunteers.

Tasks Include: 

  • Invigilation of TULCA Festival art galleries

  • Assisting with the delivery of programme events

  • Supporting education tours and workshops


Benefits: Participating in TULCA Festival gives you hands-on experience of the time, energy, drive and ambition that goes into the production and running of a contemporary visual art festival. TULCA Festival values those that volunteer with us as most of the TULCA team started out as volunteers. We seek to provide an enriching, educational, and uplifting time for all of our volunteers.

Gallery Assistant Duties: Art Gallery invigilation, ensuring the safety and security of artworks on display, providing a warm and welcoming environment for our visitors, point of contact for gallery visitors.

Live Event Duties: Event venue invigilation, assist production team with event delivery of event, providing a warm and welcoming environment for our visitors, point of contact for event visitors.

Educational Duties: Represent TULCA, meet and greet, support/assist with art gallery tours, usher groups between venues, support/assist workshop facilitators, supervision support.

• volunteer@tulca.ie
• www.tulca.ie/volunteer

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts
Strange lands still bear common ground
Curated by Beulah Ezeugo
7-23 November 2025
Galway, Ireland

www.tulca.ie

Video: Laura Griffin

 

TULCA 2025: Open Call

 

TULCA 2025: Open Call

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is pleased to announce details of its 2025 Open Call curated by Beulah Ezeugo; Strange lands still bear common ground.

Curatorial brief:

The prevailing global logic suggests that we as humans cannot bear alterity. We configure ourselves as nations, groups, or individuals whose autonomy is maintained by the boundaries we create. In reality, all of us are enmeshed in complex, interdependent networks - the recent pandemic has clarified that nations cannot operate as entirely isolated entities. Similarly, our current ecological crisis is rooted in extractive relationships, particularly those formed by the Global North’s ongoing reliance on the Global South.

Our intrinsic desires for familiarity and connection with the Other persist and are reflected in our lived experiences on this island. We see this exemplified through recent acts of solidarity between the people of Ireland and Palestine, ongoing dialogues between the country’s North and the South, and Galway’s position at the Atlantic edge, which invites us to consider how moments of contact with the external world can echo outward through the island and shape the contours of our collective identity. 

The 23rd edition of the TULCA Festival of Visual Arts invites proposals from artists whose work orbits around themes of collectivity, binarism, solidarity, affinity, and exchange or whose work engages with these dynamics:

Within the landscape; if a border is a real or imagined line that separates one entity from another, or an island is an independent land-mass distinguished from the sea, when do such boundaries blur, shift, collapse, or merge?

Within our cultural imaginations, where historical or mythological affinities with others shape our configurations of ourselves.

Within and beyond our own borders, where Ireland, as an island nation divided into two, relates to its internal others.

We welcome individual artists, cultural workers, filmmakers, and writers. We especially would like to hear from collaborative duos or groups who work across borders or nations and whose work resonates with these ideas, however they may manifest.

TULCA is curated through direct invitation and an Open Call process. The final selection of artworks will be based on thematic connection, artistic quality, and feasibility. Selections are made by the curator in consultation with the TULCA producer.

Open Call Process & Guidelines can be found here.

Deadline: 02 May 2025, 5pm (submissions closed)

Image: A Burmese map of the world, showing traces of Medieval European map-making from The Thirty-Seven Nats: A Phase of Spirit Worship Prevailing in Burma (1906) by Sir Richard Carnac Temple (1850-1931). The Himalayas are shown by a horizontal green line: above is the magical land of seven lakes and Mount Meru; below is where strangers come from.

 

Announcement: Beulah Ezeugo to curate TULCA 2025

 

Announcement: Beulah Ezeugo to curate TULCA 2025

TULCA is pleased to announce Beulah Ezeugo as the curator of the 23rd edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts in 2025.

Beulah Ezeugo is a curator and writer who works between Ireland and the UK. Her practice engages with postcolonial geographies and memory, and expands outward through critical writing, exhibition-making, and public programming. Beulah programmes the lecture series, Race, Rights, and Sovereignty at Glasgow School of Art, and is a cofounder (with Joselle Ntumba) of Éireann and I – a community archive and memory project. 

Recent residencies and awards include Platform Commissions, 41st EVA International (2025), SIRIUS Critic-in-Residence (2024), and 11:11 x Iniva Residency, Stuart Hall Library, London (2024). She was a Research Associate at CCA Derry~Londonderry (2022-24) and recipient of Glasgow International’s Black Curators Collective Bursary (2021). Her writing has appeared in The Irish Times, as well as in publications by Douglas Hyde Gallery, Durty Books, and Bloomers Magazine.

"I’m delighted to be invited to curate TULCA. Over the past few years, the festival has consistently offered compelling interventions within the Irish arts landscape. The opportunity to contribute to this lineage will undoubtedly be formative for me, and I’m truly honoured. It also feels especially meaningful to be involved at this moment. The systems we know are being rapidly reshaped, and artists and cultural workers have a vital role to play in staying with the trouble. As this becomes increasingly difficult, with growing barriers and heightened censorship around cultural production, it feels pertinent to create space for those courageously engaging with urgent issues."

Beulah Ezeugo, TULCA 2025 Curator

TULCA 2025: Strange lands still bear common ground will run from 7-23 November 2025 across multiple venues in Galway city and county. TULCA is now accepting submissions for its Open Call. For information on how to apply, and to read a short curatorial statement from Beulah Ezeugo, please click here

TULCA Festival of Visual Arts
Strange lands still bear common ground
Curated by Beulah Ezeugo
7-23 November 2025
Galway, Ireland

www.tulca.ie

Photo by Chaz Scott

 

The passing of our dear colleague, Michael Mee

 

It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of the passing of our dear colleague, Michael Mee. Michael was a valued member of the TULCA technical team for many years, offering his expertise and support with a generous spirit. His passion for the arts and warm presence made him a beloved figure among our team and artists. Michael's dedication and compassion will be deeply missed. Our thoughts are with his wife, Mary, and his family during this incredibly difficult time.

Image credit: Michael Mee speaking at the Health Research Board - National Clinical Trials Office in October 2024.