Dr Clare Gallagher

Overview

Dr Clare Gallagher is Senior Lecturer in Photography and Co-Director for BA (Hons) Photography with Video, teaches MFA Photography and is a PhD Supervisor in the Art & Design Research Institute. Her practice-based research focuses on home and women's experiences, using art to challenge their invisibility. She also writes, curates and speaks about marginalised voices and subject matter in Northern Irish culture. Her new book, Subversive Mothers, Disturbing Domesticity, was published by Bloomsbury in 2026.

Clare has taught since 2003 and has been a Fellow of the HEA since 2016. She studied in London, Canterbury, Toulouse and Belfast, earning a PhD on The Second Shift: Making Visible Women's Work in the Home. She has been External Examiner at the University of Sunderland and at IADT in Dún Laoghaire, as well as examining PhDs in Ireland and the UK.

Research and Impact

Clare’s research focuses on home and women’s experiences there, seeking to challenge their invisibility and trivialisation in the dominant narratives. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki and at Photo Museum Ireland, Dublin. Most recently, her work The Second Shift was part of the Hayward Gallery touring exhibition, Acts of Creation: on Art and Motherhood at VISUAL Carlow, curated by Hettie Judah. Clare was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize and the Paul Hamlyn Visual Artists Award. Her work is in a number of collections including Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland, Museu d’Art Modern, Tarragona, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her photobook The Second Shift was named in The Guardian's best photography books and formed the basis of a multicomponent output in REF2021.

In addition to her book Subversive Mothers, Disturbing Domesticity, Clare has written articles and essays for Visual Artists Ireland, the British Journal of Photography, the Regional Cultural Centre in Donegal, and contributed a chapter on photography and the everyday for Stephen Bull's key textbook A Companion to Photography published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Clare’s curatorial work includes A Bigger Picture (How Did We Get to Know So Little?) at the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast which platformed the missing feminist and queer subjects and voices in Northern Irish art. She led the Curating Activism strand of Frederick Douglass Week 2024, and curated the exhibition of artist-activists’ work on reproductive justice, refugees in Belfast, queer utopias, feminist film, and survivors of the Yezidi genocide. Her invited keynotes include Visualising the Home conference in Cumbria and No Place Like Home symposium in Dublin as well as speaking at numerous other conferences.

Clare was Principal Investigator for AHRC-IAA awards The Second Shift and Taking Boys Seriously and is a member of the Impact Case Study The Female Voice. She has led workshops with women experiencing homelessness to support them to develop new photographic work. Published as exhibitions and materials for advocacy work, Still Somebody has helped challenge the narrative, establish empathy around homelessness, and build a sense of agency among the participants.

Teaching and Learning

Clare teaches BA (Hons) Photography with Video and MFA Photography. She is Module Leader for PHT801 Reviewing Practice (level 7), PHT306 Strategies (level 5), PHT106 Contextual Studies (level 4), and teaches on PHT501 Dissertation (level 6), PHT107 Visual Narratives (level 4), PHT502 Advanced Independent Practice (level 6). She also co-ordinates PHT309 Diploma in International Academic Studies (level 5). She has been nominated twice for teaching excellence.

Clare supervised to completion Ara Devine's PhD on post-memory and the Irish border, Ashle Bailey's PhD on cultural trauma post-Troubles, Sarah Tehan's MPhil on post-colonialism and photography, and Niamh Callaghan's PhD on the psychosocial experience of murals in Northern Ireland.

She is currently primary supervisor for Elisa Valandro's PhD on memory and family narrative, Aidan O'Neill's PhD on survivor-centred approaches to conflict-related sexual violence, Paul Thomas' PhD on spaces of sexual identity and trauma, and Selina Bonelli's PhD on performance art and the embodied legacy of conflict.

Civic and Leadership

Clare has been Course Director of BA (Hons) Photography with Video 2016-2019 and 2023-present, Admissions Lead since 2017, and International Lead since 2016, setting up key new partnerships with international institutions, notably MOME in Budapest and the Royal Academy in Antwerp. As an experienced educator she has mentored numerous new lecturers through First Steps to Teaching.

Clare is a Reviewing Member of the Art & Design Ethics Filter Committee and has substantial experience in navigating complex ethics with vulnerable groups as Chief Investigator. She was a member of Ulster University's Open Research & Innovation Research Group developing the Ulster Research Strategy. She is a member of the Northern Irish Art Network and the Art Working Parents Network, and has been on the Board of Directors of Source Photographic Review and the Belfast Photo Festival.