Artist Talk & Clay workshop

Join us from 6pm for this unique artist talk and clay workshop with artist Claire McLaughlin, who is exhibiting her current body of work as part of the exhibition Still, We Gather

“In the oyster’s story, I found a bridge between craft, ecology, and community memory.”

A recent shift in practice, after decades of exploring meaning in domestic ceramics, led ceramic artist Claire McLaughlin toward a deeper engagement with landscape, ecology, and community. What began with a derelict cottage and a forgotten set of bowls, grew into a collaborative environmental artwork shaped by children, elders, and the living waters of the bay.

For Thursday Lates, Claire will talk about this creative journey and offer workshop attendees the hands-on opportunity of bringing shells from the ancient Galway Bay Shell Middens back to life in clay. It is hoped that this tactile experience will stimulate conversation on how these clay shell vessels are a way of connecting with and holding history and attest to the kinship between human and more-than-human.

Claire McLaughlin is a Galway-based artist/educator and graduate of Ulster University and the Royal College of Art, London. From 2000-2019 she lectured on the Fine Art programme, ATU Galway.

Working primarily in clay and print, McLaughlin explores domestic space, legacy, and the quiet narratives held within everyday objects. Her recent practice reflects a decisive shift toward ecological concerns, where questions of value and responsible environmental stewardship take centre stage. Through the material language of clay with its capacity for both permanence and fragility, she evokes a sense of preciousness and vulnerability, inviting viewers to consider their own relationship with the natural world. Alongside artworks for exhibition, she seeks to establish creative social settings where communities can gather to consider aspects of the health of the local ecology, how it connects with the wider environment and the impacts of human activity on our non-human kin.

Her recent research has explored the marine environment of Inner Galway Bay and its water catchment area (Catchment 29) in the West of Ireland. In particular she has investigated the oyster, both native and farmed, in its current reality, and the ways of subsistence farming and fishing which prevailed up to the mid 1900s. The impact and legacy of colonisation and evidence of gatherings to feast on shell fish found in the many ancient shell middens along this stretch of coast. She has worked with Galway-based Cuan Beo (Living Harbour) whose mission is ‘Reconnecting Land and Sea’ to develop community projects that connect practices, stories and ways of life surrounding the shoreline in Galway with current ecological fragilities, complex social and political histories and evidence from ancient times.

Image: Courtesy of artist

Presented as part of the’Thursday Lates’ programme, funded by Galway City Council and the Department of Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sports as part of the Galway City Night-Time Economy Action Plan.