There’s a strong focus on climate change and society in this year’s Galway International Arts Festival’s visual arts programme.

Artists and collaborators in many of the shows are responding to the climate crisis, environmental degradation and people’s relationships with nature and each other.

They include Scottish artist David Mach, returning to Galway with a new site-specific installation Burning Down the House at the Festival Gallery on William Street. Mach’s previous festival exhibitions include largescale works including The Oligarch’s Nightmare, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Golgotha. One of the UK’s most successful artists, he’s known for creating dynamic, large-scale collage and provocative public art. His method of using mass-produced and reclaimed materials like newspapers, coat hangers and tyres, challenges notions of consumption, waste and excess.

Several exhibitions explore climate justice, biodiversity loss and regenerative futures, exploring more sustainable ways of living.

These include Funeral for Ashes from Conor Maloney and John Conneely, an interactive immersive installation honouring Ireland’s endangered ash woodlands. This contemplative installation, at the Printworks Gallery, Market Street, features 3D scans of ash trees and their habitats.

This Too Will Pass, at Interface in the Inagh Valley, is a group show exploring the transience of life. The exhibition reflects on sustainability and plots a hopeful path toward a harmonious, sustainable future. Participating artists include Thomas Brezing, Luke Casserly, Ceara Conway, Naomi Draper, Aisling Dunne, Richard Long, Darran McGlynn and Katherine Sankey.

At the University of Galway’s Bailey Allen Hall, Not Breaking – This Wave Drowns Hate is an interactive piece by Kat Austen, responding to the crisis of marine microplastic pollution. She creates inspirations for a more symbiotic relationship between humans and the marine environment.

What Lies Beneath the Rubble, photo-essays from award-winning Palestinian photo-journalist Eman Mohammed from Gaza, challenge stereotypes and focus on human rights. This show is at the University of Galway’s O’Donoghue Centre.

Through the Lens, an exhibition celebrating key moments of President Michael D. Higgins political career is at Galway City Museum. It will explore President Higgins’ human-rights work, his defence of Ireland’s language and heritage, and his constant support for the arts. The show will include photographs from press archives, public collections and his own archive.

Jane Cassidy and Arts Alive’s Tactile Tunes is at the University of Galway’s Aula Maxima,. Arts Alive is a community based arts programme for adults with intellectual disabilities and this show aims to make the joy of music accessible to everyone.

Irish/Polish artist Patryk Gizicki’s Stay Forever More at the Outset Gallery in the Cornstore is a reflective journey into the artist’s childhood and adolescence in his hometown, Castlebar, exploring themes of home, belonging and what it means to be Irish.

Other exhibitions include Erin Lawlor’s Divinity at the Printworks Gallery, which delves into the idea of place while searching for something ideal or imagined.

Laura O’Connor and Leann Herlihy’s Pass the Baton draws on personal histories of competitive sport and performance to interrogate ideas of identity and nationalism. It’s at Galway Arts Centre.

Darran McGlynn’s State of Play at Gallery 126, showcases new sculpture and text to explore societal, material and environmental histories. Joan Sugrue’s Gold Shift at Salthill’s Engage Studios reflects on colonialism and power politics. And an archival photo exhibition from the Connacht Tribune’s Joe O’Shaughnessy at the Kenny Gallery, celebrates Druid Theatre’s 50th anniversary.

More information on the exhibitions, which are free, at giaf.ie.

Pictured: Visitors intrigued by David Mach’s 2023 installation, The Oligarch’s Nightmare, in the Festival Gallery at William Street. His new work will be in the same venue.