Timeless images of horror and humanity

Images of conflict at the Earagail Arts Festival, through a range of artforms, are a potent and thought-provoking testimony to the chilling effects of war, writes Mary Phelan

Art and war: the words sit uneasily together. "Conflict and Resolution" would seem a rather unlikely thematic orientation for the visual programme of a mid-summer arts festival, particularly one in a remote rural location. It is, nonetheless, proving a compelling, coherent choice for this year's Earagail Arts Festival.

The thematic exploration is diverse and multi-faceted, dispersed over a wide geographical area. It takes two hours to get from Moira McIvor's Memory Memorial, in Fort Dunree on the Inishowen peninsula, to The Art of the Troubles in An Gailearaí, Falcarrragh. The exhibitions incorporate a range of artforms, from William Orpen's evocative, classically representational first World War sketches and water-colours at the Glebe Gallery in Churchill, via the iconic Vietnam photojournalism of Tim Page at the Donegal County Museum, through to the more conceptually-based This Ain't No Fooling Around at the Letterkenny Arts Centre. Seen earlier this year at the Rubicon Gallery, this challenging show features the work of contemporary artists who have allowed the war in Iraq to impact on their artistic practice - or indeed made it a central focus. There are seven thought-provoking exhibitions in all, their cumulative synergy a potent mix.

The thematic orientation came from a deep awareness of the social role of the arts, and from a sense that the time was right, according to John Cunningham, director of the Letterkenny Arts Centre, who co-curated the exhibitions. "Art is a frame," he says "and we wanted to draw attention to this work. We also wanted to map out possible avenues of engagement, while remaining descriptive rather than prescriptive. Our cross-border work in schools, and collaboration with The Nerve Centre in Derry, made us very aware of the importance of Battle of the Somme, and we were determined to have a coherent programme."

Although each picture is worth at least a thousand words, pictures hanging on walls are only part of the story. Contextual information is important. The visual displays are supplemented by a comprehensive programme of parallel events, including film, a panel discussion on "Conflict and Resolution", a series of workshops on workplace conflict held at Donegal County Council's HQ, plus a drama programme on racism in three local primary schools.

Create a Link, a Letterkenny-based arts initiative putting creativity at the heart of mental health care, hosts an exhibition mapping people's inner journeys and struggles.

And, lest this all seem incredibly heavy duty, the festival organisers have, in true Earagail spirit, come up with several more light-hearted takes on the subject. This includes "embedding" artist-in-residence Michael Fortune, who has a track record of exploring contentious issues - like holiday homes, for instance - in a way that combines humour, satire and biting social commentary, with the Donegal News for the duration of the festival.

They have also invited representatives of local community groups dealing with conflict and resolution issues to team up with artists/chefs in the spectacular Gleveigh Castle on the final evening of the festival. The purpose? To cook a meal from the first class menu of the Titanic: a metaphor for seizing each moment as if it's our last, according to the festival organisers. The public is invited to come along and bring a picnic.

The range and quality of the works displayed is remarkable. The Orpen exhibition, for example, brings together 33 works on paper, 10 of which have never been seen before, from the Imperial War Museum in London. These are highly representational pencil drawings and watercolours, stunningly executed. They uncompromisingly depict life on the front and in the trenches, and the horrors, as well as the humanity, that this entailed. Orpen's skilled portraiture and draughtmanship captures the reality he encountered, and from which he never fully recovered, as one of the first ever war artists. Painfully beautiful line drawings and soft washes graphically capture the immediacy of expression and gesture, and the destruction, both physical and psychological. Curating this exhibition, Adrian Kelly, artistic director at the Glebe Gallery, chose hastily sketched drawings or quickly executed watercolours, rather than more elaborate, thus more studied, oil paintings.

"There is an immediacy and a fragility to the works on paper," he says. "They were done very quickly on the spot, so they capture the moment far more than studio-based work." Hanging the exhibition on the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme was "very creepy", he adds.

The first World War was, of course, an "old war", and the techniques used to depict it traditional and undeconstructed. Both the technology of warfare and the technologies of representations have changed dramatically since then. While the propaganda function of the official war artist cannot be denied, Orpen's delicate watercolours, for all the horror of their theme, are a far cry from the embedded journalism of Fox TV.

The lens has become central to the representation of conflict, and photography the dominant idiom. Tim Page, one of the legends of Vietnam and inspiration for Dennis Hopper's acid-head photographer in Apocalypse Now, is a seminal figure.

Dispatches at the Donegal County Museum shows four decades of Page's lifework documenting civil conflict, from Vietnam through to Iraq. Initially a news photographer, Page's images, like those of Orpen, are strongly aesthetic. Operation Starlight, for example, is an uncannily beautiful photograph of something not normally expected to appear visually pleasing - a military exercise.

Page's images are quite painterly, and he shares Orpen's strong empathy and an explicit recognition that foot-soldiers, whatever their political affiliation, are but the pawns in a much bigger game. One of his most gripping images is of two Viet Cong soldiers, blindfolded, labelled and dressed in rags, awaiting interrogation. Recent images of war immediately come to mind.

The role of the camera in the depiction of political events, and in their public appropriation, is explored in two films showing upstairs at the Museum. The Battle of the Bogside, Vinnie Cunningham's masterful exploration of the tumultuous events on the streets of Derry in 1969, and Picturing Derry, a documentary on the role of photojournalism in Northern Ireland, both demonstrate and interrogate the role of visual imagery in political conflict.

Photography features strongly throughout. Creative siting is a hallmark of Earagail, and the impact of Moira McIver's Memory, Memorial is intensified by its location - the spectacularly sited Fort Dunree Military Museum overlooking Lough Swilly. Coming from a fine art background, McIvor's portraits feature the hands of now elderly veterans from the second World War. Shot against their torsoes, uniformed in original khaki, these hands have both cherished and killed. With Rathmullen, the soon-to-be commemorated embarkation point of the Flight of the Earls, directly across the Lough from Dunree, the next round of historical debate is tangibly in the air.

Back in Letterkenny, the theme Civil Strife looms large. Huge, striking photographs of "new wars" deck the gallery of An Grianán Theatre. A video featuring images of unspeakable brutality, beautifully produced by Gary Trotter of Images Sans Frontiers, loops in the corner.

Richard Wayman, finding sanctuary in Donegal after the ravages of war photography, co-curated the exhibition. His images - Afghani refugees fleeing the Taliban, or the elegiac portrait of post-traumatic stress from a psychiatric ward in Tajikistan - vividly capture the human misery caused by conflict. As political testimony these are potent pictures and, as visual compositions, stunning. A print from Tim Page, this time from EastTimor and dated June 2006, underlines how little things have changed.

• The Earagail festival runs until July 23. Some elements of its visual arts strand run on: Dispatches - Tim Page runs until Aug 26 and William Orpen's The Watcher runs until Aug 31. See www.eaf.ie