This year's festival is the most ambitious yet and is proof of a burgeoning visual arts scene.

The 2006 festival also sees a change of direction for Tulca. For the first four years, former Galway Arts Centre curator Michael Dempsey was at the helm, but now his role is filled by three curators: Cliodhna Shaffrey, Sarah Searson and Aine Philips.

While Philips was involved in previous Tulcas, Shaffrey and Searson are new to Galway's scene. The hope is to bring in fresh ideas and to enable the festival to expand in scope. "I suppose coming in from the outside is good because you're not carrying any preferences, " says Shaffrey.

The curators have managed to pull together an impressive lineup, especially considering they only had a few months to prepare, a feat Shaffrey attributes to the local dynamism. "We were invited in July and while it was a quick time in which to think things through, we really got into it and were taken with the energy."

The 16-day festival features work by 94 artists in 20 venues throughout the city. It includes major works by internationally renowned artists alongside wellknown Irish figures, up-andcoming artists and local practitioners. There is also a series of talks and a new initiative called the Tulca Thinker, in which Galway-based philosopher Katherine Waugh will reflect upon and respond to the festival.

The curators have decided on a loose theme of "Within and Without", which is described by Shaffrey as "the idea of the artist giving visual expression to the fragments in which we exist". This boils down to an open theoretical framework for a wide range of works by both invited artists and those selected through open submission.

A theme in many of these works is that of home and architecture.

A highlight is French artist Pierre Huyghe's 2004 film This is Not a Time for Dreaming at NUI Galway, a puppet musical film about a le Corbusier commission for Harvard University. Also examining modernist architecture is Danish artist Kasper Akh j Pederson's slide about a villa designed by Eileen Gray and Rudolph M Schindler's Kings Road house in Hollywood.

Meanwhile, US artist Jackie Sumell's The House that Herman Built relates to Herman Wallace, a prisoner with whom Sumell has built up a relationship. The work aims to answer the question:

"What kind of house does a man who has lived in solitary confinement, in a 6ft by 9ft cell, for 34 years dream of?"

Another large group show has subtle political undertones.

Stephen Gunning's film Leave to Remain focuses on the Afghan hunger strike at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, while Theresa Nanigian uses newspaper clippings to examine the build-up to the war in Iraq.

Aideen Barry and Rosie Lynch explore the mythology surrounding Galway's Fisheries Tower in Folklore Experiments, while Louise Manifold's Ghost Gaol animation is inspired by a Galway prison that closed in 1939.

Artspace Studios, meanwhile, has come up with the quirky idea of Revolving Door, which presents a single-night solo exhibition by a different artist each evening.

Two day-long programmes of events take place on 18 and 25 November, while performance artist Richard Dedomenici takes up residency at the former Tuxedo Shop on Dominic Street.

"Live art is one of the areas we want to make a complete commitment to, " says Shaffrey.

Tulca means large wave in Irish, an appropriate title for a festival that began as a small, local event but which is growing to become an artistic tidal wave that floods Galway every year.

Tulca runs until 26 November. For full details see www. tulca. ie