Conor Horgan trained as an assistant to Dublin advertising and fashion photographer Tony Higgins before opening his own studio in the mid-Eighties. After ten years working in the area of fashion and advertising he started specialising in editorial and commercial portraiture, with commissions from Condé Nast Traveller, Vogue UK, Harpers & Queen, Elle Magazine, Cara Magazine, Image Magazine, The Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Telegraph, Sony Music, CBS Records, BBC, ITV, RTE and many others, including the official portrait of President Mary Robinson.
He began working in film In the early 2000’s, and his first feature film One Hundred Mornings garnered acclaim and awards around the world. Other films include About Beauty, following artist Dorothy Cross as she works in Papua New Guinea and The Beholder, a documentary about portraiture featuring Brian Maguire, Mick O’Dea and James Hanley. In 2010 he made the multi-award winning Deep End Dance in collaboration with David Bolger of CoisCéim Dance Theatre. His most recent film is the The Queen of Ireland, a record-breaking documentary about legendary Irish drag queen Panti Bliss and the fight for marriage equality.
His visual arts practice is ongoing, with works featured in the RHA annual exhibition (2016), a one-person show in the Little Museum of Dublin (2015) and the publication of his second photobook, So Far (Ponc Press, 2015). His most recent exhibition is En Résidence, (2021) a permanent installation of 18 large-scale portraits of former artists-in-residence in the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris. He lives in Dublin.
Someone’s Daughters
Farah Damji
After spending 25 years in and out of 8 UK prisons following her first six-month sentence at the notorious Rikers Island jail in New York, Farah Damji is a woman with conviction, a campaigner for the rights of women in the criminal justice system and a talented artist. She lives in Dublin, having left the UK after years of abuse, false imprisonment and harassment by the UK State and its agencies. She refuses to grow old gracefully or shut up. She has been working with The View Magazine, A grass-roots social enterprise and campaigning platform that gives voice to women in the criminal justice system, provides an outlet for creativity, and allows for financial independence. The View Magazine was started by a group of women whilst incarcerated to embody the challenges they faced with the criminal justice system.
Ivana Bacik
Ivana grew up in Rathgar/Terenure and lives in Portobello with her young family. Ivana is a lawyer and has taught law over many years in Trinity College Dublin. An experienced legislator, Ivana has seen more of her opposition bills become law than any other senator.
Ivana’s reforming legislation has tackled issues such as working conditions for freelancers, secular marriage, women’s health rights and LGBT equality.
A long-term campaigner for constitutional change, Ivana was a leading national and local voice in the Marriage Equality and Repeal the 8th campaigns. On the board of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
Ivana Bacik is the Irish Labour Party politician who has been Leader of the Labour Party since 24 March 2022.
As a student activist she was taken to court and threatened with prison for providing information on abortion – The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) took the student union to court and “won a legal case that if you give information to a woman in crisis pregnancy that might enable her to access abortion, therefore that’s endangering the life of the unborn and therefore it’s in breach of the Constitution. It was a big legal jump of interpretation to suggest that the eighth amendment should stop women from accessing information…”The outcry following the infantilizing treatment of women paved the way for repeal of the Eighth Amendment, and legalisation of abortion in Ireland. She was first elected to serve in Seanad Éireann in 2007. An experienced legislator, she has seen more of her opposition bills become law than any other senator.
Her reforming legislation has tackled issues such as working conditions for freelancers, secular marriage, women’s health rights and LGBT equality.
A long-term campaigner for constitutional change, she was a leading national and local voice in the Marriage Equality and Repeal the 8th campaigns. On the board of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
She recognises that prison is an “especially brutalising experience for women ”, and has called for judges to explore alternative options first. According to Bacik the majority of crimes for which women are imprisoned are “crimes against poverty-mainly shoplifting”. The current system fails to recognise the socio-economic factors related to crime, especially for vulnerable women, who require additional support for rehabilitation. She calls for additional training and guidance for judges, particularly when dealing with women.