25 April,
Workshop /
Samuel Arnold Keane and Kasia Kaminska: Language and light: foraging and cyanotype workshop
Saturday, 25 April 2026, 12:00pm
Galway Arts Centre / €65
Book NowWhat I am hoping to capture is that luminance that arises from the depths of languages – the way they shine a faint light on the past and illuminate some of our murkier memories and practices – Manchán Magan
Guided by the words and work of Manchán Magan, we will shine a light on the plantlife that surrounds us through this bilingual foraging walk and cyanotype printmaking workshop.
We will work with light in all its many forms – the light that the Irish language shines on the past, illuminating older, often more ecological ways of relating to our environments, and the natural light of the sun to create cyanotype prints celebrating our native and naturalised plants and words.
Beginning with a walk in the areas surrounding Galway Arts Centre, we will gather and learn about the wild plants growing in the city and what their names as Gaeilge reveal to us about their uses for food, medicine, crafts and art.
This will be followed by a cyanotype workshop in Áras na nGael. Cyanotype is one of the earliest photography processes and utilises a special solution that is sensitive to sunlight to create beautiful cyan blue images.
Inspired by Manchán’s Gaeilge Tamagotchi, which saw participants of this performance receive a unique and endangered Irish word to nurture, nourish and take guardianship of, we will invite participants to care for a chosen plant name as Gaeilge, and in turn to care for the plant whose name is written.
After the workshop we invite participants to stay a while to chat and enjoy some wild nibbles and refreshments.
Please note, all levels of Irish (including none) are welcomed.
Kasia is an artist living in Co. Kilkenny. Her practice encompasses photography, print, publications and public engagement. She works with plant based analogue photography processes and sustainable darkroom methods as well as foraging, gardening and growing. Her practice is led by issues of eco-social concern and she often works in collaboration with others and in socially engaged contexts.
Her wider practice includes public art and education projects, workshops, exhibitions, residencies, book design, bookmaking, collaborations and community festival organising. Her most recent projects include Know Your Hedgerow with The Acorn Project / Kilkenny Leader Partnership (2025 – 2026), Forage + Light with Samuel Arnold Keane and Mermaid Arts Centre (2024 – 2026), Wilderland, a Creative Ireland Climate Action project with Elaine Harrington and Materials Matter in Co. Mayo (2024 – 2025), and Leave The Long Grass Grow / Lig don Chuise Fada Fás with Maura Brennan / The Acorn Project (2023 – 2024).
Samuel Arnold Keane is a forager, illustrator, and musician, merging various art forms to tell the stories of the seaweeds, coasts and streets he gathers, wades and walks. At the essence of his creative practice is a passion for the natural world and to share this with others through performance, image and word.
As a multidisciplinary artist Samuel has long been drawn to collaboration and merging of art forms with practical knowledge, just as his art work blends dreamscape with landscape. The act of foraging bleeds into the creation of seaweed inks onto visuals, lyrics are salted by ocean waves and foraging workshops are flooded with story.
Samuel has exhibited artwork in solo exhibitions at Kilcoe Studios, Ballydehob, West Cork, Middlecountry Gallery, Cloughjordan, Chateau de Lacaze, Tarn, France. He has collaborated on various projects with visual artists, acrobats, musicians, chefs, marine biologists and activists, running workshops as part of festivals and events (Beyond the Pale, Liberties Fest, Irish Wildlife Trust, Shifting Tides). Last year his project Skate + Forage was selected for IMMA’s Earth Rising Festival.
He has written and illustrated publications, where seaweed dances, urban forager and skate + forage. Samuel is currently working on a year long project with West Cork Islands Creative Places and Forage + Light with artist Kasia Kaminska, a workshop series and publication commissioned by Mermaid Arts Centre.
