Artistic Director, Paul Fahy, on Art & Culture
The great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable”.
To me, art is the very fabric of our lives: without it, our lives are so much poorer. Art has the power to stop us in our tracks, to open up the richest, deepest and most integral layers of who we are, where we have come from and what we have done. It helps us cut to the core of where our most human and most vital experiences occur.
Culture, to me, is what it is that makes life possible and worth living. It’s that important. The way a community sees itself and how it shows itself to others, how it expresses its values that define it as a distinctive group; values that are to be celebrated, remembered and offered to future generations.
José Manuel Barroso, Former President of the European Commission, said; “European Capitals of Culture are proof that culture has a major role to play at the heart of our policies of sustainable development, because they are part of the long-term development of European cities and their regions, as well as a source of stimulus for dynamism, creativity, but also social inclusion.”
We at Galway International Arts Festival have always aimed to be challenging and entertaining at the same time. Artists and audiences are at the heart of everything we do and creating a space for artists to make and present work while engaging audiences is key to who we are.
We hope you’ll find a Festival of Extraordinary Experiences at Galway International Arts Festival 2015.