Women's Work: Female Photography as Visibility, Agency and Resistance: Photo Museum Ireland

As part of Photo Museum Ireland's Through the Lens lecture series, this talk reflected upon the complexity of our lived experiences, exploring themes of belonging, care, memory, and the ways we create meaning in our lives. It considered both the comfort of feeling at home - in our bodies and communities - and the challenges of displacement, marginalisation and invisibility.

The ways we connect to place and identity are shaped not only by personal experiences but also by broader social and cultural forces. In the North, women continue to navigate systemic barriers, from the policing of their bodies to the silencing of violence against them. These realities shape the experience of being female in this place, yet women's voices and perspectives have often been overlooked.

Photography on this island has historically been shaped by male voices, despite women creating quietly powerful, groundbreaking work. This lecture challenges those omissions by foregrounding the work of female photographers whose perspectives offer a valuable and necessary counterpoint.