settle by TRESTLE

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market St.
Exhibition open from Thursday 17 – Sunday 27, September
Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm, Sunday - Monday 12 noon - 5pm
FREE entry - All are welcome, no booking required 

settle is a temporary architectural installation designed and curated by TRESTLE

settle proposes a new public interior for gathering and collective experience in the contemporary city. Inspired by the functionalism and adaptability of Irish vernacular furniture, the installation explores how an infrastructure of considered objects can formulate a new, albeit temporary, public interior. The installation can be recast and reformatted to host a variety of events and gatherings – in this way it acts as an extended invitation to the city.

Supported by: 
Arts Council of Ireland (Project Award) 

Fire Structures - Ambacht studio

Exhibition/Workshop

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market St.


Exhibition open from Thursday 17 – Sunday 27, September 


Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm, Sunday - Monday 12 noon - 5pm 

FREE entry - All are welcome, no booking required 

Walking Tour led by Róisín Mc Loughlin

“Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán Féin:
Hearth to Hearth through Galway City” 

12:00 - 13:00, Sunday 27th September

Meeting point: Tigh Neachtains

Artist Talk / Workshop with Ambacht Studio

13:00 - 15:00, Sunday 27th September

Ancient gathering around the hearth is explored through an installation of pre-modern structures in the form of cyanotype prints and a cyanotype print workshop.

Centred on the role of fire in early human gatherings and pre-modern architecture, this exhibition explores ancient Irish settlement structures from the Grooved Ware period (3000–2400 BC)—a culture believed to be particularly integrated with fire in both domestic and ritual life.

The installation provides a spatial interpretation of a characteristic structure from this era: a circular enclosure featuring four internal posts and a central hearth aligned with the entry. Within the exhibition, this central hearth is reimagined as a rectangular podium displaying study prints for visitors to gather around, view, and touch. Beneath these items, an undeveloped cyanotype print remains exposed throughout the festival, affected with visitor’s actions and ambient light. This symbolic hearth transforms the fire into "a living thing" where the public’s interaction mimics the preservation of a flame. An arrangement of interconnecting stools (by Nocht Studio) forms the first enclosure, encouraging rest and communal gathering around the hearth.

As a second concentric semi-enclosure, three large-scale cyanotype prints interpret Grooved Ware architectural elements across three distinct scales: the site plan, the individual structure, and art. These prints are toned using a bath of ash and wheat grass.

The exhibition concludes with an artist talk and workshop guided by Adela Gomez, where participants will learn to create cyanotype prints from drawings. This event follows Róisín Mc Loughlin tour “Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán Féin: Hearth to Hearth through Galway City” with both events joining at the Printworks Gallery.

Bio

Ambacht was founded in 2020 by Adela Gomez and Bram D’hoedt. Their work finds balance through the act of making, testing spatial configurations and material possibilities. The tactile presence of drawings, models and cyanotype prints allows for cyclical reflection striving to retain the integrity of core design ideologies and the joy of process.

Adela Gómez, co-founder of Ambacht, is an architect and visual artist.. She was awarded the 2023 and again in 2026 Bursary Award from the Irish Arts Council. Her work has appeared in various printed and online publications. Unbuilt and Adela were awarded the Dublin City Art's Office 2026 Incubation Space Award.

Bram D’hoedt, co-founder of Ambacht, conducted his architecture studies at KU Leuven and completed his thesis in association with Columbia University & NYIT. In 2026, Bram was awarded the Agility Award - Architecture by the Arts Council of Ireland.  Bram is also a frequent guest reviewer at TUD, UCD, and SAUL.

Project credits Kinstools by Nocht Studio.

We are grateful to Nocht Studio and the KinShip project for the loan of the Kinstools. Philip Ryan of Nocht studio developed the KinStools during an artist placement with the KinShip project and Nature Network Ireland in Tramore Valley Park, in collaboration with the Douglas Frankfield Men’s Shed. Made from locally grown Cork ash and drawing on traditional Irish furniture joinery, the KinStools are a series of two-legged stools designed to interlock with one another. Together, they form adaptable seating arrangements for the Den Talamh KinShip EcoLab pavilion, designed by Fuinneamh Architects.

Lá sa gclaí (meaning ‘a day in the wall’)

A Bayanihan Project led by Brian Ó Curnáin & Eduard Valenzuela

Exhibition

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market St.

Thursday 17th September - Sunday 27th September 

Round Table / Talk at the Table

18:00 - 20:00hr, Saturday 19th September

FREE entry - All are welcome, no booking required

This event will be hosted around the remnants of a rammed earth wall built in Waterford as part of the European Architecture Students Assembly (EASA) in July 2026. Over two weeks, twenty participants came together to learn and test contemporary ways of making, while sharing stories and experiences with one another. The wall became more than a structure; it became a place to gather. It was activated through a series of events, from a communal meal and film screening to storytelling, before finally becoming a place to rest beneath the stars.2

The work of those two weeks will now be brought to Printworks Gallery through the original formwork and supporting structures. Here, the wall will be given a new life once again - becoming a place for conversation and exchange. The exhibition will host talks and a discussion on the spatial role of walls today. From the Irish field boundary to contested borders, and from shared civic infrastructure to architectures of exclusion. This conversation will be led by young voices from across the built environment. 

Project credits:
Aine Dunne, Davidhenry Oghenetejiri Uyovbisere and Daniel Fehily.

Supported by:  
Grafton Architects
Tec7
EASA Seanchaí

Bios

Brian Ó Curnáin is a Galway native and architectural graduate from UCD. He spent time at TU Delft and has worked in a number of architectural practices in Dublin. He is co-curator of Bayanihan, a community-focused workshop project that was awarded the Thornton Education Trust Prize in 2025. He is a recipient of the John Meagher Bursary, has been nominated for the Bruce Short Prize, and has exhibited work in the As an gCeo exhibition. He invigilated at the Venice Biennale in 2023 and won the UCD Architecture writing prize in 2026.

Eduard Valenzuela is an M.Arch student at Central Saint Martins in London. He completed his undergraduate studies at UCD before working at design-led practice Nooma Studio. His work focuses on community-led design, public realm, and temporary spatial activations, aiming to bring marginalised voices into the Irish architectural landscape. He co-leads the Bayanihan project as part of the Architecture At The Edge Festival. The project was awarded the Thornton Education Trust Award. In 2024, he was a scholar at the British School at Rome and recently took part in the School of Filo residency in Northern Italy.

Danny Fehily is an M.Arch graduate from UCD. He is also a filmmaker and one of five tutors in ‘Eat Sleep Ram Repeat’. He studied at TU Wien and has worked in architectural practices in Berlin and London. He has produced a number of short films for architectural projects and has attended film and architecture workshops at AATE and the AA School of Architecture. He recently completed the film Filipino-Irish as part of Bayanihan – Tambayan, which explores the people and spaces that form a community. The film was exhibited at AATE 2025

Áine Dunne is a Part 2 architectural graduate from UCD, now practicing in Dublin. She has studied at the University of Melbourne and worked in architectural practices in Spain. She is interested in socially engaged architecture and alternative living, and is an active member of the Dublin Student Housing Co-operative. She participated in SESAM Amatrice in 2026 and tutored at EASA, co-leading the workshop Eat Sleep Ram Repeat. She has also tutored in Bayanihan workshops over the past two years.

Davidhenry Uyovbisere is a recent M.Arch graduate from UCD whose work explores architecture’s emotional and experiential qualities. He studied at Arkitektskolen Aarhus, developing an interest in earthen composite construction, and worked at Bucholz McEvoy Architects. His thesis examines human interaction through the lens of time and atmosphere, while his practice explores building as a pedagogical catalyst for the exchange of experience and evocation of emotions

EASA Seanchaí

Exhibition

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market St.


Exhibition open from Thursday 17 – Sunday 27, September 


Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm, Sunday - Monday 12 noon - 5pm 


FREE entry - All are welcome, no booking required 

What happens when people meet, make, exchange and imagine together?

The 46th European Architecture Students Assembly, EASA Seanchaí, brought 600 architecture students from across Europe to Waterford for two weeks of collective practice and gathering. Across 41 workshops, participants worked through drawing, making, performance, publishing, spatial experimentation and documentation, producing a diverse body of work and experience.

What remains from such an intense and temporary gathering? Stories, ideas and fragments left in its wake now resurface in Galway, drawn from the many forms of making and exchange that shaped the assembly. Rather than reconstructing EASA as a single story, the exhibition brings together fragments that are partial, overlapping and unfinished, allowing different connections and readings to emerge.

What was made, shared and remembered at the assembly becomes something to encounter again, differently. Taking its theme from the tradition of the Seanchaí, the exhibition considers how stories, ideas and experiences shift as they are carried from one moment to another.

The Chloran Síle Flag 

by Miriam de Búrca and Áine Phillips

Exhibition  >>>

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market St.
Exhibition open from Thursday 17 – Sunday 27, September
Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm, Sunday - Monday 12 noon - 5pm 

Artists Talk  >>>

Festival Printworks Gallery,
14:00-15:00 hr, Sunday 20th , September 2026
FREE entry - All are welcome, but pre- booking is advised.

The Chloran Síle Flag represents a Sheela-na-gig that has been held in the collection of the British Museum since the late 1800s, having been taken from a site in West Meath during British occupation.

Sheela na gigs are medieval stone carvings of female figures displaying their genitalia with exaggerated grotesque and humorous facial expressions. They are found predominantly in Ireland. Experts believe they were protective talismans connected to ancient folk ideas of birth, death and life giving power. Sheela na gigs are viewed by modern feminists as symbols of female empowerment, body autonomy, and resistance against patriarchal oppression. 

The Chloran Sile Flag also confronts colonial legacies, her display highlights the expropriation of objects and treasures from Ireland that are still held in British institutions. This flag, as a symbol of identity, authority and solidarity to communicate shared values, proposes the restitution and repatriation of this ancient carving, echoing the artistic call to be found on the reverse of the flag: Síle come home.

Miriam de Búrca creates highly intricate, research-driven drawings and film works that adopt a forensic approach to uncover hidden histories, confronting the legacies of patriarchy, institutional power, and colonialism. Through drawing and installation de Búrca toys with the vocabulary of colonial aesthetics, using strategies of mimicry and irony as political tools to critique the superiority of ‘high art’. Áine Phillips for over 30 years has explored and engaged with women's lived experience, female autobiography and histories, feminism, community and social justice. She sees her work as a form of social activism through art. The two artists came together to create this flag celebrating the Chloran Síle as an emblem of women’s power and presence, a pre-christian icon representing a time when women had matriarchal status and equality in our society. The taking of this Síle, without consent, stands in for the rape and pillage of all cultures that are subject to colonisation, past and present.

Miriam de Búrca studied Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art and the Ulster University, Belfast. She is represented by Cristea Roberts Gallery, London and has works in the collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; Arts Council of Ireland; the British Museum; National University of Ireland Galway and private collections. De Búrca lives and works in Galway.

Áine Phillips is a visual artist based in Galway. She makes performances, films and installations often working with communities and collaborators in Ireland and internationally since the late 80’s. Recent work includes a Decade of Centenaries project Reflections Banners commemorating Irish women’s history 1923 - 2023, commissioned by Galway City Arts Office, Libraries and Museum. 

Mayo Atlas -

Aidan Conway, MarMar Architects

Mayo Atlas

Aidan Conway  / Marmar Architects

Festival Printworks Gallery, Market St.
Exhibition open from Thursday 17 – Sunday 27, September
Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm, Sunday - Monday 12 noon - 5pm

FREE entry - All are welcome, no booking required 

The Mayo Atlas is a research project by Aidan Conway, MarMar Architects exploring the built environment and landscapes of County Mayo.

Detailed 3D models from photogrammetric* and LiDAR* scans form the point of entry for each site. Dense surveys that reveal individual threads of enquiry varying from ecology, local history, geology, archaeology, construction, material, form and adaption.

This exhibition includes 11 such sites, each forming a short story within a shared context.

It includes collaborations with Aisling McCoy, Peter Molloy, Lottie Mac and Claire Kinsella. Conversations conducted across sites of varying scale and detail.

At Aillebaun Forest, the composition of the native woodland examined. The canopy is described by a tufting (Lottie Mac). Photogrammetric scans explore the changing scale of the oak, from sapling to mature tree, while photographs capture the rooms within the forest (Aisling McCoy).

At the other end of the scale, the detail of a timber column at Turin Gate Lodge is examined. A timber post set on a stone base, it has stood since 1838 and represents an almost 190-year-old experiment in timber detailing.

The objective of this ongoing research is to embed oneself in a context through the study of specific moments that, at times, may offer universal insights

Aidan Conway is an architect based in Castlebar, County Mayo. In 2021 he founded Marmar architects. The work engages with the history of the built environment and specifically how it positions itself within the landscape of the west of Ireland. They are  currently engaged in a number of Residential projects, extensions and new builds along with a line of research work and teaching.

Supported by: The Arts Council (Project Award)

Your Seat at the Table 

Co-designed by Ailbhe Cunningham, Ample Space & Leo Keller, grundfunkel

A creative, participatory workshop and exhibition that invites you to share everyday life experiences from your home. You choose the story. We supply the table.

Exhibition: 

Thursday 17th September - Sunday 27th September 

Workshop: 

12:00 - 14:00, Saturday 19th September

Artist Talk: 

14:00 - 15:00, Sunday 27th September

Although serving different contexts, both a host’s table runner and a craftsperson’s tool roll are devices of organisation and care: one brings order and atmosphere to a shared table, while the other securely stores and carries the tools of everyday making. 

Your Seat at the Table combines these two objects into a fabric-based design object. Interfacing between the public workshop and the private experience of home, the dressed table establishes a space of care and hospitality where residents' living experiences can be shared, documented and valued. 

Your Seat at the Table consists of a creative, participatory workshop and interactive exhibition. Architectural representations often fail to capture the messiness of everyday experiences in our homes and the impacts that buildings have on our lives. 

Your Seat at the Table aims to collectively share our everyday experiences of inhabiting our homes and neighbourhoods.  

Your story could be about barriers to having a safe or secure home, or about things that you hold dear and long to hold onto. We will make visible the conditions that we need to turn a house into a comfortable and safe home. 

We recognise that people communicate, learn and share experiences in diverse ways. The project offers multiple modes of participation - creative, sensory and conversational forms of engagement. You are invited to join us - to sit around the table and tell your story in a way that feels right for you. Use your voice, your hands, your ears, your heart. All forms of storytelling are welcome! 

Workshop materials and tools will be provided.

Supported by * 

Your Seat at the Table is part of a wider research project funded by Research Ireland, in conjunction with TU Dublin (academic partner) and the RIAI (enterprise partner).

Project credits

Your Seat at the Table is a collaborative project between Irish architect Ailbhe Cunningham of Ample Space and German tailor Leo Keller of grundfunkel.

Ailbhe Cunningham is an architect MRIAI and researcher engaged in transdisciplinary, participatory and creative design, evaluation & knowledge exchange. She is a founding director of Ample Space, a collaborative research & design practice in Cork city. 

Leo Keller is a tailor, bagmaker and fashion designer with a focus on one-of-a-kind pieces. They develop, construct, sew and repair all things textile - keeping favorite pieces alive or giving a second life to pre-used materials and setting those into a new and sometimes unexpected context. 

Co-designed by Ailbhe Cunningham, Ample Space & Leo Keller, grundfunkel with support from Kevin Donovan & Paddy Dolan, TUDublin. 

Kinstools

by Nocht Studio

Philip Ryan of Nocht studio developed the KinStools during an artist placement with the KinShip project and Nature Network Ireland in Tramore Valley Park, in collaboration with the Douglas Frankfield Men’s Shed. Made from locally grown Cork ash and drawing on traditional Irish furniture joinery, the KinStools are a series of two-legged stools designed to interlock with one another. Together, they form adaptable seating arrangements for the Den Talamh KinShip EcoLab pavilion, designed by Fuinneamh Architects.

Project credits; Kinstools courtesy the KinShip project.