A Year in Review: Moving, Growing, Fighting

Galway Arts Centre are pleased to announce A Year in Review: Moving, Growing, Fighting an exhibition of new work by Bog Cottage.

Bog Cottage began as a formalised response to art making in the west of Ireland. Born from a yearning for queer community and spaces, Bog Cottage first started as friends hanging out making clay, friends doing DIY and opening a cafe. Since then Bog Cottage has transformed into an art making and community building tool, connecting artists who want to share skills, knowledge and resources.

Bog Cottage is creating spaces – otherworlds full of softness, play, surprise and delight. Bog Cottage weaves narratives, both real and fantastical throughout their work. Building spaces which show a glimpse of a mirror world. Spaces that act as sanctuary, havens to find peace and comfort in. Bog Cottage is Roberta Murray, Orla Meagher, and all the goodies we meet along the way.

“For the last few years the Year in Review has been a zine that we made and posted to our friends, families, patrons, and stans in January. The zines were short and fun, we had some puzzles, a recipe or two and a little round up of the exhibitions we’d done that year.
This year the Year in Review is an exhibition instead. It is a gathering of all the different thoughts and strands and feelings we had over the last year.

Being honest, we really struggled to make art this year with the genocide in Palestine live streamed to our phone. Every day a new more unfathomable horror. Making art about imagined queer utopias feels indulgent, frivolous, naive, privileged.

We still went to the studio. We sat. We ate snacks. We painted. We binned the paintings. We journaled. We made t-shirts to protest. We made t-shirts for friends. We made signs for demos. We experimented with print techniques and we mended clothes. We kept our hands busy. For Bog Cottage, art making has always been a tool. A way to keep grounded. Something to do to not pick your nails. The best way to hang out with friends. Keep your brain thinking. Thinking about making a new coffee cup. Looking at anything and thinking ‘how would we make that’.

This year we spent a lot of time in Berlin. We went to Palestine liberation demos multiple times a week. We watched the Berlin Polizei beat and arrest people week after week for over a year. We moved house so many times. We found community. We practiced what that meant. We made soup and we cycled our bikes and we went on a holiday to Marseille. We laughed a lot. These works are a representation of our year. They are mismatched, unfinished, repetitive, ugly, purposeful, forgiving.

We are full of gratitude and love. We are so lucky to have loving families and stable
accommodation. Even when everything feels shit we know that we are lucky and that is basically what this show is about.”

– Bog Cottage – Roberta Murray & Orla Meagher