A Woman’s Work: Clare Gallagher & Csilla Klenyánszki

Photo Museum Ireland is delighted to present a new two-person exhibition of work by Clare Gallagher and Csilla Klenyánszki. The exhibition features Gallagher’s series The Second Shift and Klenyánszki’s Pillars of Home.

Publications: Clare Gallagher’s The Second Shift (€35) and Csilla Klenyánszki’s Pillars of Home (€35) are available to buy from Photo Museum Ireland’s bookshop, and online on https://www.photobooks.site/

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Gallagher’s work refers to the hidden burden of housework and childcare primarily carried out by women on top of their paid employment. It is physical, mental and emotional labour demanding effort, skill and time but which is unpaid, unaccounted for, unequally distributed and largely unrecognised. Hidden in plain sight and veiled by familiarity and insignificance, this form of labour is largely absent from conventional photographic representations of home and family. Gallagher’s project is an attempt to recognise the complexity and value of this invisible work. It is a call for resistance to the capitalist, patriarchal and aesthetic systems that deny its intrinsic worth.

Artist Biography: Dr Clare Gallagher is a Northern Irish artist whose work focuses on the ordinary, everyday experiences of home. A photography lecturer since 2003, Gallagher teaches on the BA and MFA programmes at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University. She recently completed a PhD using photography and video to research the hidden work of home and family. Her project The Second Shift has been exhibited in Finland, and will be shown also in Lithuania and Germany.

With Klenyánszki’s Pillars of Home the challenges of early motherhood are transformed into a game: the lack of time, the fragility of a new life, the weight of responsibility, changing identities, tension. The ‘pillars’ of the title are ninety-five balancing sculptures, made during her son’s nap, when the family home – the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom or even the staircase – became a studio for no more than thirty minutes at a time. The pillars rely on their own inner stability while being framed only by the floor and the ceiling. As the objects are piled up, they become a coherent entity, but their delicate arrangement and balancing structure makes them vulnerable. They can be destroyed at any moment. The work addresses a singular dilemma: how does a mother find balance between all her priorities, a never-ending juggling act.

Artist Biography: Csilla Klenyánszki is a Hungarian artist living and working in the Netherlands. Her work is represented by TRAPEZ Gallery, Budapest, Hungary. Within her current practice Klenyánszki examines and deconstructs personal - but universally known - challenges such as parenthood, gender, and the malleability of one’s identity through the passage of time. Although her approach is analytical, the nature of the work is highly playful and experimental.

These important works are presented to Irish audiences as part of ‘A Woman’s Work’, an initiative funded by Creative Europe to consider the representation of women’s labour in all its forms, and our own curatorial focus on contemporary women’s practice. Although made long before the COVID-19 pandemic the projects take on a new resonance in light of our changed relationship to domestic space, revealing it as both a place of refuge and a territory marked by unexpected tensions.

“A Woman's Work" exhibition and publication launch, Thursday Dec 17th 6pm.

Join us on Zoom at 6pm this Thursday 17th Dec for an insight into our new exhibition "A Woman's Work" and celebrate our newest photobook publication - Miriam O'Connor's "Tomorrow is Sunday".

We are delighted that Katie Lowry of the Creative Europe Desk will kick off the session, which will feature  informal presentations from the artists including: Clare Gallagher (Belfast), Csilla Klenyanszki (Zwaag, The Netherlands), Miriam O’Connor (Macroom, Co. Cork), Emese Mucsi (Budapest, Hungary) and some surprise guests will pop in too. Our token man (!) the indefatigable David Drake from Ffotogallery Cardiff, and other EU partners in the A Woman's Work project will also take part.

As part of A Woman’s Work, an initiative funded by Creative Europe to consider the representation of women’s labour in all its forms – and our own curatorial focus on contemporary women’s practice – Gallery of Photography Ireland is delighted to present a new two-person exhibition of work by Clare Gallagher and Csilla Klenyánszki. The exhibition features Gallagher’s series The Second Shift and Klenyánszki’s Pillars of Home.

Exhibition dates

December 15th 2020 - January 23rd 2021

Museum information

Opening hours

Open 6 days:

Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm

Open Mondays by appointment for ongoing education, artists archiving and training.

Closed Sundays

Closed for bank holidays and public holidays

Admission is free 

Find us

Photo Museum Ireland

Meeting House Square,

Temple Bar,

Dublin D02 X406, Ireland