CLARE GALLAGHER

Clare Gallagher is a Northern Irish artist whose work focuses on women’s experiences of home.

A Senior Lecturer at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University, Clare has taught since 2003. She is Co-Director of the BA (Hons) Photography with Video programme, as well as teaching MFA Photography and supervising PhD researchers. Clare is also an academic researcher and completed a PhD using photography and video to research the hidden work of home and family. Her new book, Subversive Mothers, Disturbing Domesticity, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2025. More of her research can be found here.

Clare’s practice centres on themes of home and care, primarily using photography. Her previous projects have focused on overlooked elements of domestic life, seeking value in the daily work of mothering and home, and challenging perceptions of home life as leisured, insignificant and safe.

In The Second Shift she looked at the invisible work of home and childcare primarily carried out by women on top of their paid employment. The series was published as a photobook which was named as one of The Guardian’s top 15 photobooks of the year, incorporating a quietly angry poem by Leontia Flynn, and using cropping and layering to destabilise and denaturalise notions of home.

Her work-in-progress Touch/Hunger turns towards the attachments and tensions in relationships of and with the home, the performance of care, as well as invisible mental and emotional labour. It explores the contradictions of intimacy and claustrophobia situated there, and maternal anxiety about loss or separation at the same time as the increasing detachment of teenagers.

Exhibitions

A Sense of Place: 40 Years of Northern Irish Photography, Belfast Exposed Gallery, 2024
The Irish Photobook, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand, 2024
Curating Activism, Frederick Douglass Week, Belfast, 2024 [curator]
Postcards for Palestine, Claire de Rouen Books, London, 2023
Postcards for Palestine, Berlinskej Model, Prague, 2023
No Place Like Home, Photo Museum Ireland, 2023
The Second Shift, Galleri Batteri, Kristiansund, Norway, 2023
Not Alone: A Touring Exhibition for Our Strange New World, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2023
Making Art: Photography Draíocht Gallery, Dublin, 2023
How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) TJ Boulting, London, 2022
Photography and The Social Gaze, Photo Museum Ireland, Dublin, 2022
My Obvious Presence: Lived Motherhood in Contemporary Visual Culture Deák Erika Gallery, Budapest, 2022
Family and Other Ties, Family Ties Network University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, 2022
National Photography Collection, Photo Museum Ireland, Dublin, 2022
A Bigger Picture (How Did We Get to Know So Little?) Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2022 [curator]
A Woman’s Work, Photo Museum Ireland, Dublin, 2021-22 [two-person]
The Second Shift, Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, 2020 [solo]
The Muse of the Greenhouse, Kaunas Photography Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania, 2020
Not Alone: A Touring Exhibition for Our Strange New World, Bologna, Rome, Amsterdam, Heemstede, 2020-21
It Clings to Me Like a Leech, PS2, Belfast, 2019 [solo]
Domestic Drift, Temporary Places/PS2, Peas Park, Belfast, 2018 [solo]
Verges, New Spaces, Brooke Park, Derry, 2018 [solo]
Verges, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2018 [solo]
Beyond View: 10 Years of Photography, Belfast Exposed Gallery, Belfast, 2018
Another Narrative, 2nd Ningbo International Photography Week, Zhejiang, China, 2017
You and Me, Landskrona Foto Festival, Sweden, 2017
Domestic Drift, Dali International Photo Festival, Dali, China, 2015
The Feminist Lens, Remote Photo Festival, Letterkenny, Ireland, 2015
Domestic Drift, Aleppo 12th International Photography Festival, Aleppo, Syria, 2015
New Work from the Belfast School of Art, Gallery Mältinranta, Tampere, 2014 [curator]
Projections, Circulation(s) Festival, Centquatre-Paris and Métro Europe, Paris, 2014
Domestic Drift, Galería H2O, Barcelona, 2013 [solo]
Domestic Drift, Talent Latent 12, SCAN Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain, 2012
Plat(t)form 2012, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, 2012
Domestic Drift, Delhi Photo Festival, India Habitat Centre, Delhi, India, 2011
Domestic Drift, Saatchi & Channel 4 New Sensations, Victoria House, London, 2011
Art Below, Regent's Park Underground Station, London, 2011
What Matters Now? Aperture Foundation, New York, 2011
For Japan Hotshoe Gallery, London, 2011
Close to Home Belfast Photo Festival, 2011
Gift of Gift of Spacetaker, Houston, Texas, 2011
Close To Home PhotoIreland Festival, Dublin, 2011
MFA Show Ulster University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 2011
Art: Works North Down Museum, Bangor, Northern Ireland, 2010
Rhizomatic Departure Gallery, London, 2010
Isle of Thanet Artists Ramsgate, England, 2005
T.S. Eliot University of Kent, Canterbury, England, 2001
UCA/Kent Institute of Art & Design Degree Show Canterbury, England, 2001
Toute Cette Beauté Inutile Montpellier, France, 2000
Toute Cette Beauté Inutile Caen, France, 1999
Foundation Show Camberwell, London, 1997

Books/Press/Catalogues
Subversive Mothers, Disturbing Domesticity [authored book] Bloomsbury, 2025
“Clare Gallagher: Inside the Second Shift” [interview] Drake’s Artist Conversations by David Chandler, 2022
Mass Isolation, [book] Photo Museum Ireland, 2022
“Scaling a Mountain of Laundry” [exhibition essay] Reetta Haarajoki, Finnish Museum of Photography, 2020
“Interview ‘Even dust can be interesting’: the woman who photographs housework” [feature] Sean O’Hagan, The Guardian, 2020
“Boring Pictures: Photography as Art of the Everyday” [authored chapter] in Stephen Bull’s A Companion to Photography, Wiley-Blackwell, 2020
“The Second Shift” [review] Jörg Colberg, Conscientious Photography Magazine, 2020
“The Second Shift” [review] Rosita Sweetman, The Irish Times, 2020
“Clare Gallagher’s Second Shift” [review] Stephanie McBride, Irish Arts Review, 2020
“Clare Gallagher, The Second Shift” [review] Olga Yatskevich, Collector Daily 2020
“Top 15 Photography Books of 2019” [review] Sean O’Hagan, The Guardian, 2019
The Second Shift, [authored book] self-published photobook, 2019
“The Second Shift: Clare Gallagher discusses her photographic research focusing on the burden of domestic labour for working women” [authored article] Visual Artists Ireland Newssheet Sept-Oct 2019
Verges, [authored book] TLP Editions/PhotoIreland Foundation, 2018
“Clare Gallagher, Verges, Golden Thread Gallery” [review] Slavka Sverakova, 2018
You and Me, [catalogue] Landskrona Foto Festival, 2017
“The Point” [feature] After the Flood, Issue 12, Summer 2016
“Delicate Demons: do women belong in the home?” [authored article] British Journal of Photography, 2015
Holding Cohesion [catalogue] Nykyaika & Backlight Photo Festival, 2014
Poética Fotográfica [feature in authored book] Llorenç Raich Muñoz, Casimiro Libros, Madrid 2014
“Deriva doméstica: l’exposició que sublima el dia a dia” [TV feature] Barcelona Televisió, 2013
Domestic Drift, [catalogue] Galería H2O, 2013
Magenta Foundation Flash Forward [book] 2012
Talent Latent [book] SCAN Tarragona, 2012
“Best Shots - Clare Gallagher” [review] Notes on Politics, Theory & Photography, 2012
“Photographer Clare Gallagher's Best Shot” [feature] The Guardian, 2012
“Clare Gallagher: Domestic Drift” [review] Information.dk, Fotobloggen, 2012
“The Forgotten Beauty of Weeds” [feature] Oh Comely, 2012
Delhi Photo Festival [catalogue] India Habitat Centre & Nazar Foundation, 2011
What Matters Now? [feature] Aperture, 6th Sept 2011
“Clare Gallagher” [feature] Source Photographic Review, pp16-25, Issue 66, Spring 2011

Awards/Residencies/Talks
Artist Residency, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, 2025
Speaker, Subversive Mothers: Stop Rocking the Cradle and Start Rocking the Boat, Evil Women Conference, Prague, 2023
Speaker, A Bigger Picture, Belfast Photo Festival and British Journal of Photography, 2022
Speaker, Northern Ireland’s Feminist and Queer Art Histories Conference, Courtauld Institute, 2022
Longlisted for Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, 2021
Guest Lecturer, TUniversity Dublin, 2021
Guest Speaker, Miniclicks, 2021
Guest Lecturer, UCA, 2020
In Conversation with Sean O’Hagan & Yvette Monahan, Belfast Photo Festival, 2020
Guest Lecturer, Falmouth University, 2020
Artist Residency, PS2, Belfast, 2019
Artist Residency, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, 2019
Speaker & Panellist, Visual Artists Ireland, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2018
Workshop Leader, Nordic Light Photo Festival, Kristiansund, Norway, 2018
Jelgavas Tipogrāfija/Backlight Book Publication Award, Latvia/Finland, 2017
Keynote Speaker, Visualising the Home Conference, University of Cumbria, 2017
Speaker, International Conference on Photography and Theory, Cyprus, 2016
Speaker, The Feminist Lens, Belfast Exposed Gallery, 2015
Speaker, Power and Photography Seminar, University of Tampere, 2014
Artist-in-Residence, Backlight Photo Festival, Tampere, Finland, 2013
Magenta Flash Forward Emerging Photographers, 2012
Arts Council of Northern Ireland grant, 2011

Collections
Arts Council Ireland Collection
Arts Council Northern Ireland Collection
Fundació Forvm per la Fotografia, Tarragona
Galería H2O, Barcelona
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Sammlung Schürmann, Berlin
National Photography Collection, Ireland
O’Carroll Collection, Ireland