Galway 2020 says ‘We need to talk’ – but just not about Galway 2020!

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column with Dara Bradley

Galway 2020, the company set-up to deliver Galway’s European Capital of Culture project in 2020, held its first ‘open house’ event at its base on Merchants Road last Friday.
It used Culture Night to launch a new pilot project, ‘We need to talk about’. This, we are told, was a “public engagement project aimed at getting people talking about a series of topics that we should discuss as a society, but don’t”.
A very good idea. But, oh, the irony is delicious, especially given the ‘code of silence’ that surrounded the Galway 2020 project since before the bid was won, and which continues to this day.
And it’s surely not lost on the many local arts organisations, who are afraid to talk openly and publicly about being told by Galway 2020 that they will have to produce their projects for the yearlong designation with, in some cases, a 36% smaller budget than was originally promised in the bid book.
The fear of speaking out against Galway 2020 that exists within organisations included in the bid book is frightening. One of the (unintended) legacies of Galway 2020, could be a culture of fear about speaking out and curtailment of freedom of expression, a fundamental for artists; a culture where anyone who criticises Galway 2020 is accused A) of having an agenda; or B) is anti-Galway and won’t ‘pull on the maroon jersey’.
As a part of the ‘We need to talk about’ project, Galway 2020 encouraged people to bring to the table “any topics that concern them” – explaining that these would ultimately inform the project.
What Galway 2020 doesn’t seem to have recognised is that one of the prevailing ‘topics of concern’ for the arts and business communities and general public, that ‘We need to talk about’, is right under their noses: the manner in which the entire Galway Capital of Culture project has been mishandled. Stick that in your suggestion box – and discuss it.

For more Bradley Bytes see this week’s Galway City Tribune