'It’s all up in the air'- TULCA Festival of Visual Arts comes to University Hospital Galway

'It’s all up in the air' by Rhona Byrne, an installation comprising of balloons shaped into a sculpture and suspended from the ceiling of the main foyer of University Hospital Galway, as part of the programme for TULCA 2015 which runs from the 14-29 of November. Mary Cremin, this year’s curator chose the piece with a healthcare setting in mind which evolved from the theme of seachange.  The installation provokes thought and presents the audience with a complex set of emotions.
 
Referring to the installation in University Hospital Galway, Rhona said, “This work plays with binaries, it is ephemeral and tangible, serious and absurd. Humour and anxiety are inherent in the piece as it floats suspended within the architecture of the hospital. Within the context of the hospital and framework the TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Seachange ‘It’s all up in the air’ relates to tensions and unknown futures.  It is a visualisation of a scrambled and confused brain cloud, a heightened awareness of where you are and the precarious nature of existence. Hovering in the foyer, it invites a pause as one enters and allows for conversations on conflicting notions of what it means, but ‘It’s all up in the air’”.
 
Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust partners with TULCA Festival of Visual Arts each year to bring a new piece of exciting, challenging art to the hospital setting. The installation calls attention away from the mixed emotions often felt about the uncertainty of situations and their outcomes which are often present in a hospital. Instead the artwork creates a new avenue of conversation which would not take place otherwise. It will be exhibited in the hospital foyer from November 13 for six weeks.
 
For more information on the Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust contact Margaret Flannery, Arts Director on 091-544979 or email margaret.flannery@hse.ie