The 2024 Architecture at the Edge Festival (AATE), which runs from Friday, September 20 to Sunday, October 6 will feature installations, exhibitions, films, workshops, talks, tours and more.

The theme is Islands and highlights will include a presentation of In Search of Hy-Brasil – which was Ireland’s national pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023’.

That project examines the relationship between Ireland’s islands and their natural environment, putting their communities and cultures at the heart of a discourse around our shared future.

The installation will be located at Galway City’s Docks, allowing local people a chance to see Ireland’s entry to Venice. A supporting programme of events will aim to initiate a series of conversations around a shared vision for a more sustainable future.

Director of The Arts Council Maureen Kennelly will give the Festival’s opening address at the PorterShed on the city’s Market Street next Friday evening – this also happens to be Culture Night  Then there will be a round-table discussion with the curators of Ireland’s pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale: Peter Carroll, Peter Cody, Elizabeth Hatz, Mary Laheen and Joseph Mackey.

On Sunday, September 22, AATE will present an exclusive screening of the film Ag Lorg Hy-Brasil at the city’s Town Hall Theatre. It will include a sneak peek at the documentary on the making of In search of Hy-Brasil.

That film ruminates on the mythical island off the Connemara coast and explores how it inspired Ireland’s pavilion at the Biennale.

The creative team will attend a post-screening discussion.

Other exhibitions and installations at AATE will include Fantasy Islands by Sophie Kelliher and David Lawless; and a site-specific, seaside installation An Bothan Cladach by London-based duo Genevieve O’Sullivan and Luca Puzzoni.

The Landscape Rehearsals, by BothAnd Group, which will  be at the Festival Gallery, contains a large drawing depicting clachán settlements and roinn dáil.

This was a landscape management practice that was common in the West of Ireland before the Great Famine.

On Friday, October at Druid’s Mick Lally Theatre there will be a joint presentation by Proctor and Matthews Architects and Dr Eoin Flaherty of Maynooth University on how these Irish clachan clusters could inspire new residential developments. This approach could offer an alternative to low-density, car-dominated suburbia, according to Architecture at the Edge’s Festival Director, Frank Monahan.

This year’s programme also includes a keynote address by architect Shane de Blacam. That’s on September 27 from 5-8pm in the O’Donoghue Theatre at the University of Galway.

Shane de Blacam received the Royal Academy of Arts Architecture Prize in London in 2023 and this event will offer people a chance to hear his lecture in full. It will be followed by a conversation, moderated by artist, architect and journalist Marko Milovanovic, who received the RA residency created in honour of Shane. To complete the line-up, architects Cian Deegan and Alice Casey from TAKA Architects will be in Galway to present their work.

For those whose like hiking, archaeologist Michael Gibbons  will lead field trips to Inis Mór, Clare Island and Inishbofin.

People can also travel to Inisturk and meet local man Jack Heanue who will talk about life on that island and the plans for helping its small community to survive into the future.

Architecture at the Edge aims to be an accessible and enjoyable festival and most events are free to attend. Frank Monahan of the Festival extends his thanks to the Arts Council and to the sponsors and supporting partners who have made this possible.

Full details at www.architectureattheedge.com.

Pictured: The South Coastline by architect Noreile Breen, part of her photographic study of the ‘humanised’ built landscape of Inis Oírr, which will be shown at Architectur