Galway Arts Centre

19/06/2026

‘UnWorlding’

Weekend Opening Hours
Sat: 10am-5pm
Sun: 12pm-5pm

‘Landscapes of Shame’
Patrick Hough
2026
16mm and VHS-C film, transferred to 16mm positive print, colour, sound, 16mm projection
Running time: 28 min 51 sec

‘UnWorlding’ explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly—not as chaos, but as a force that resists systems of control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition assembles figures, landscapes and sites where this wildness persists: in terrains marked by colonial violence, in the unruly geographies of q***r desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.
Curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
This exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

More info https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
Runs until 28 June

Photos: Tom Flanagan

The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Council Galway City Arts Office This Is Galway Galway's Westend

Instagram:

17/06/2026

Artist Spotlight - ‘UnWorlding’

Patrick Hough is an artist from Offaly working with moving image across gallery and cinema contexts. Their practice traces the entanglement of archaeological, geological and ecological worlds, folding deep time into lived experience and material memory. Each project begins with a lingering image, a body lifted from peat, a whale stranded in an Irish bog, and develops through research led moving image installations. Within these works, distinctions between human and nonhuman, life and decay loosen, allowing feral forms of relation to surface.

Their work has been exhibited and screened internationally at institutions including Whitechapel Gallery, London; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; MAAT, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; CPH:DOX, Copenhagen; Para Site, Hong Kong; and the Jing’an International Sculpture Project, Shanghai. They are a recipient of the Jerwood FVU Awards (2017) and a Film London FLAMIN Productions Award (2019).

‘UnWorlding’ explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly—not as chaos, but as a force that resists systems of control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition assembles figures, landscapes and sites where this wildness persists: in terrains marked by colonial violence, in the unruly geographies of q***r desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.
Curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
This exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

More info https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
Runs until 28 June

Photo: Julie McLoughlin

The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Council Galway City Arts Office This Is Galway Galway's Westend

Instagram:

16/06/2026

‘UnWorlding’

Opening Hours This Week
Tue / Wed / Fri / Sat: 10am-5pm
Thu: 10am-9pm
Sun: 12pm-5pm

‘Landscapes of Shame’
Patrick Hough
2026
16mm and VHS-C film, transferred to 16mm positive print, colour, sound, 16mm projection
Running time: 28 min 51 sec

‘Twin Wolves’
Patrick Hough
2026
Silver gelatin hand print, aluminium frame
154 × 123 cm

‘Twin Bodies’
Patrick Hough
2026
Silver gelatin hand print, aluminium frame
154 × 123 cm

‘UnWorlding’ explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly—not as chaos, but as a force that resists systems of control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition assembles figures, landscapes and sites where this wildness persists: in terrains marked by colonial violence, in the unruly geographies of q***r desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.
Curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
This exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

More info https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
Runs until 28 June

Photos: Tom Flanagan

The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Council Galway City Arts Office This Is Galway Galway's Westend

Instagram:

15/06/2026

Cruising Archaeology: Archiving Pleasure and Q***r Worldmaking, with Jack Scollard
18 June / 6pm

Presented within the context of Patrick Hough’s exhibition ‘UnWorlding’, this presentation by Jack Scollard, co-founder of S**T press will consider how ‘cruising’ disrupts fixed categories and functions as a form of world-building – offering alternative ways of understanding pleasure, identity and community.

No booking required
Complimentary refreshments provided

‘UnWorlding’ explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly—not as chaos, but as a force that resists systems of control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition assembles figures, landscapes and sites where this wildness persists: in terrains marked by colonial violence, in the unruly geographies of q***r desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.
Curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
This exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

See links for more info on our current exhibition and the 'Gallery Lates' programme
https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/gallery-lates-every-thursday-evening-at-galway-arts-centre/

Image Credits:
1 / Photo by Vincent Wechselberger
2 / Courtesy of artist

‘Gallery Lates’ is funded by Galway City Council and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport as part of the Galway City Night-Time Economy Action Plan.

Galway City Council Department of Culture, Communications and Sport This Is Galway Galway's Westend The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Arts Office

Instagram: .w.s

14/06/2026

🌙 🖼 👥 From late openings at art galleries to outdoor cultural experiences and lots more, there's so much going on in Galway by Night and you can discover it all via our dedicated Galway City Night-Time Economy Homepage www.thisisgalway.ie/nighttime

Galway City's Night-Time Economy initiative is funded by Galway City Council and Department of Culture, Communications and Sport with support from Galway City Night-Time Advisor Kate Howard and Minister Patrick O'Donovan TD.

📸 Chaosheng Zhang

14/06/2026

‘UnWorlding’ Film Screening Programme, followed by Q&A with Patrick Hough

📌 Galway Arts Centre | Nuns Island Theatre
📅 Sat 27 June
⏰ 3-5pm
🎟️ FREE, no booking required

Join us at Galway Arts Centre | Nuns Island Theatre for a special afternoon film screening celebrating the final weekend of ‘UnWorlding’, the solo exhibition by Irish artist Patrick Hough. Taking place from 3-5pm on Saturday 27 June, this event presents a curated selection of films by Hough, followed by a Q&A with the artist.

Working across film, sculpture and installation, Hough’s practice explores the strange afterlives of objects, technologies and landscapes. His films move between documentary, fiction and speculative narrative, uncovering hidden histories and imagining alternative futures. Rich in atmosphere and visual invention, they invite audiences into worlds where the familiar becomes uncanny, and where stories of labour, memory, extraction and transformation come vividly into focus.

This screening offers a unique opportunity to experience a wider selection of Hough’s moving-image work alongside ‘UnWorlding’, his current exhibition at Galway Arts Centre. Seen together, the films expand on themes present in the exhibition, including ecological change, material histories and the shifting relationship between people and the environments they shape.

Following the screenings, audiences are invited to stay for a conversation with the artist, offering insight into Hough’s creative process, research methods and the ideas that inform his work.

Whether you have already visited ‘UnWorlding’ or are encountering Hough’s practice for the first time, this is an ideal chance to engage more deeply with one of Ireland’s most distinctive contemporary artists.

‘UnWorlding’ is curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
The exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

More info https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
‘UnWorlding’ runs until 28 June

Image Credits:
1 / Patrick Hough
2 / Julie McLoughlin

The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Council Galway City Arts Office This Is Galway Galway's Westend

Instagram:

12/06/2026

‘UnWorlding’

Weekend Opening Hours
Sat: 10am-5pm
Sun: 12pm-5pm

‘This Human Form’
Patrick Hough
2026
VHS-C and 16mm film, transferred to 4K digital, colour, sound, LED wall, LED lighting
Running time: 21 min 48 sec

‘Mermaid & Sea Creature’
Sheila Hough
2025
Oil stick rubbing on paper
72 × 85 cm

‘Monkey in Chains’
Sheila Hough
2025
Oil stick rubbing on paper
69 × 97 cm

‘UnWorlding’ explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly—not as chaos, but as a force that resists systems of control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition assembles figures, landscapes and sites where this wildness persists: in terrains marked by colonial violence, in the unruly geographies of q***r desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.
Curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
This exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

More info https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
Runs until 28 June

Photos: Tom Flanagan

The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Council Galway City Arts Office This Is Galway Galway's Westend

Instagram: .hough

09/06/2026

08/06/2026

Irish Language Tour, with artist Ceara Conway
11 June / 6pm

In this Irish-language tour, artist Ceara Conway approaches Patrick Hough’s 'UnWorlding' through the Irish language as a critical framework and lens in its own right, exploring how it carries cultural, ecological and historical lineages that open alternative readings of the work. This tour invites audiences to experience the exhibition through the textures, histories and phonic resonances of the language itself. All levels of Irish speakers welcome.

No booking required
Complimentary refreshments provided

‘UnWorlding’ explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly—not as chaos, but as a force that resists systems of control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition assembles figures, landscapes and sites where this wildness persists: in terrains marked by colonial violence, in the unruly geographies of q***r desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.
Curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
This exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

See links for more info on our current exhibition and the 'Gallery Lates' programme
https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/gallery-lates-every-thursday-evening-at-galway-arts-centre/

Image Credits:
1 / Courtesy of artist
2 / Patrick Hough

‘Gallery Lates’ is funded by Galway City Council and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport as part of the Galway City Night-Time Economy Action Plan.

Galway City Council Department of Culture, Communications and Sport This Is Galway Galway's Westend The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Arts Office

Instagram:

05/06/2026

‘UnWorlding’

Weekend Opening Hours
Sat: 10am-5pm
Sun: 12pm-5pm

‘Twin Wolves’
Patrick Hough
2026
Silver gelatin hand print, aluminium frame
154 × 123 cm

‘Twin Bodies’
Patrick Hough
2026
Silver gelatin hand print, aluminium frame
154 × 123 cm

‘Enclosure’
Patrick Hough
2026
Fibreglass, steel bolts, stainless steel plinth
140 × 120 × 15 cm

‘UnWorlding’ explores wildness, the untamed, the feral and the unruly—not as chaos, but as a force that resists systems of control. Bringing together film, photography and sculptural installations incorporating readymade objects, the exhibition assembles figures, landscapes and sites where this wildness persists: in terrains marked by colonial violence, in the unruly geographies of q***r desire, and in forms of life that exceed the boundaries imposed by the human.
Curated by Megs Morley and produced by Tracy Bass.
This exhibition is supported by the Arts Council through a Visual Arts Project Award.

More info https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/whats-on/unworlding/
Runs until 28 June

Photos: Tom Flanagan

The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Galway City Council Galway City Arts Office This Is Galway Galway's Westend

Instagram: