MAKING WAVES

GALWAY GHOST TRAIN
Angus Farquhar, Cristina Armstrong – NVA Glasgow
A large scale public engagement commission to celebrate the history
of the Galway/Clifden Railway which resonates in the memory of
Galwegians, those who stayed and those who left. It will highlight trade
and migration, landscape and longing. It will encourage positive attitudes
to health and well-being and be a celebration of the extraordinary
landscape from Galway City to Connemara through which the 47 mile
railway line ran from 1895 to 1935. This route is being developed as a
cycle green-way. The project will be developed in three phases, led
by world leading artists NVA, Glasgow who have conducted a site
visit and project scoping exercise (April 2016). Firstly, a county-wide
engagement and training process with artists, cultural producers and
the public; Secondly a strategically time-lined rehearsing of participants
for performances at the beginning of the line in Galway City and the
end of the line in Clifden, Connemara. Thirdly, the ‘live’ performance
experiences and the showing of a documentary film of the project.
Animating seemingly family spaces and locations, each night hundreds
of runners/cyclists in specially designed, wireless controlled LED
light suits will create complex choreographed sequences interacting
with signature landmarks and references taking in the cityscape and
nearby coast. Linking Galway and Clifden the illuminated participants
will embark along a pre-set route to create linear light patterns visible
along the path networks throughout Connemara to create a stunning
filmed work. It is proposed that the cycling element is the main form
of transport between chosen sites where each activation takes place
through runners following pre-set patterns. Performances integrate
collective movement with light, sound, the landscape and changing
climactic conditions. This project will offer excellent capacity building
opportunity to Galway based artists, technicians, running and cycling
clubs, environmental groups and others who will be afforded the
opportunity to work with NVA specialists over a three phase project.
It will also highlight the new cycle green way which will an important
element of our tourism and outdoor activity infrastructure.
National Partners
Galway Film Centre,
Galway Sports Partnership
European Partners
NVA, Glasgow, UK
Time 2019 Engagement
& Training programme
2020 4 day event (April)
Documentary showing at
Galway Film Fleadh (July)
Location Galway City to Clifden
Galway 2020 Commission
WEIGH ANCHOR
WEIGH ANCHOR LEGACY
Weigh Anchor highlights the extraordinary achievement and
sustainability of our long-established arts and organisations who led
cultural development in Galway. In recent times, these organisations
have not only survived biting austerity in Ireland but have actually
been strengthened by it. Resource sharing, collaboration and coproduction
is an outcome of the recession 2008–2014. This experience
will now be applied to the delivery of Galway’s 2020 programme
where established and resourced organisations like Druid, Galway
International Arts Festival, Macnas and Branar can support and advise
younger organisations who have developed projects of scale and
international reach for 2020 e.g. Galway Community Circus and Galway
Dance Project. The artistic quality and European relevance of the Weigh
Anchor projects indicates how positively our local professional arts
and cultural organisations and academic institutions have responded
to the invitation to be part of a cultural process that can stimulate
new ways of working, new networks and collaborations and long
term cultural benefit for the city, the county and importantly for the
people who live here and the people who visit or move here.
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