Two villages, Kells in Ireland, and Pontrhydfendigaid in Wales, have more in common than simply their Celtic ancestry and the fact that they hosted a remarkable installation of artworks by twelve artists. It is to the credit of both Ann Mulrooney and Tim Davies, the curators, that they each selected six artists of considerable repute from their respective homelands. The villages, being off the beaten track, are easily overlooked, yet both deserve investigation. This is the conviction held by the villagers in both countries, and the success of the exhibition is due to their team spirit, resourcefulness and in embracing the Strata concept. Since 1998, largely owing to their annual Sculpture at Kells exhibition, the fortunes of Kells are encouraging, and regeneration is in progress. Moreover, the eleventh-century Cistercian Priory, site of the art installations, is currently undergoing extensive restoration. Last year, the community successfully applied for EU Interreg Funding which afforded them the opportunity of instigating a joint project with the inhabitants of Pontrhydfendgaid, who were equally enthusiastic about the scheme. Being on the outskirts of this remote village, the eleventhcentury Strata Florida Abbey was the ideal site, the Abbey sharing its medieval origins with the Priory at Kells.

Both curators are artists who work within a conceptual framework, so it is unsurprising that the majority of installations are in the conceptualist vein. The brief was to install works which would relate to, and transform, the religious sites, in addition to appealing to a diverse range of visitors, some perhaps coming to view the synergetic relationship between medieval ecclesiastical architecture and contemporary visual art.

The process entailed the artists' visiting the sites in order to gain familiarity with them, so as to create pieces which would not only reflect and illuminate the spirit of the places - their holy and otherworldly ethos - but serve also as a lynchpin between the medieval and postmodern eras. With the latter in mind, Philip Napier's bold textual pieces, where messages are flashed on motorway screens, document statistics relating to consumerism and material values. Alien though they might appear in these tranquil settings, they inform the public of a twenty-first-century lifestyle that is as removed from the medieval inhabitants as are the methods of presenting them. Similarly, Keith Wilson's steel, machine-made Bull-ring and Calf ring are common utilitarian enclosures on farms, but seen in the romantic context of ecclesiastical ruins they become incongruous structures, while suggesting a safe enclave, or alternatively, dominance and control. The latter feature in both countries' histories. Ambiguity is also associated with Bird, Daphne Wright's suspended crow. But being cast in white marble dust, the black omen of evil is transformed into an iridescent dove symbolizing spirituality. Although not overtly expressed, Christine Mills uses the bridges' handrails at both sites as conductors of a spiritual presence. By cladding them with velvet, we are invited to touch them and to consider the journey of life as we gaze at the flowing millrace beneath. Touch gives way to hearing in Cecile Johnson Solitz's musical score for an epic poem which was performed at both sites. The monastic equivalent of words and music was reinterpreted by the random tinkling of bells which Solitz cast for the collars placed on the ubiquitous sheep grazing around both sites. Thus, both humans and animals, and their mutual interdependence, are praised. Such sounds can be heard from Niamh McCann's Hut of contemplation, a brightly coloured timber structure positioned on a height, where the spectator can contemplate the architecture and its reverential implications from inside a hut designed, perhaps, from a Zen aesthetic.

Commensurate with the medieval era is Armour boy, Laura Ford's knight in armour. However, his size and prostrate position suggest he is asleep, or dead, so that while he evokes the past, the figure signifies our present disregard for heritage. Ford's work compares with Bedwyr Williams', which is tinged with humorous irony, as seen in his packs of playing cards bearing photographs of the villagers in both Kells and Strata Florida. In these, memorial in implicit, whereas it is explicit in curator Tim Davies' Rag field. It consists of hundreds of stakes pushed into the ground, with a fragment of cloth impaled on each stake, so that the grassy areas resemble fields of bog cotton. Situated next to the graveyard at the Abbey, these coloured flags (and their incumbent associations with identity) are metaphors for tombstones, where the torn garments recall those who once wore them. This is familiar territory for the Irish, whose ancestral émigrés attached bits of clothing to thorn bushes in the hope of eventually reuniting with their loved ones. 'Raggy trees' exist all over Ireland, and it was Davies's encounter with the one near Kells that inspired this piece.

Alan Phelan, Playboy riot protection structure, 2005, installation shot, Kells; photograph: Ann Mulrooney; courtesy the artist

Memorial is also the theme of Alan Phelan's Playboy riot protection structure. The title references J.M. Synge's famous play and the riots that ensued following its first night at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. His semi-circular screen, daubed in gaudy primary colours bearing the play's title, hangs above the entrance to the Priory, with two ancillary screens, like sentries on either side of it, decorated with red and blue patterns, respectively. The designs mimic those of the windows in the existing Dublin theatre. From the inside of the building,the designs beyond the window openings simulate stained glass, so that postmodern pastiche is allied to medieval church decoration, and the theatricality of the Church echoes the spectacle of theatre, and vice versa. Less ceremonial are the ornamental motifs, albeit in the Celtic mode, which feature in Liadin Cooke's sculpture, enigmatically entitled Folly 2005.

Seizing on religion and politics for his theme, David Garner's Everything should be doubted consists of a tin bath clad in sheep-skin with the word 'pobl' ('people') and an 'X' sprayed in red referencing Christ. This is compounded by the large iron cross inside the bath with its Marxian quotation 'opium of the people' welded to its surface. Being installed on the altar, the piece prompts speculation on religion's role in our history and politics. Overall, this speculation is what the entire concept engenders. The sites are part of the specificity of the artworks, and these have been installed by artists conscious of the religious nature of the medieval legacy surrounding them. Yet despite the layers of meaning and years of history permeating these hallowed sites, the artists have not compromised their individual artistic practises. Rather, they have created works that articulate postmodern concepts concerning global issues at venues that are as valuable to their communities today as they were in the eleventh century - sites that are worthy of resurrecting.

Anne Price-Owen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Research and Postgraduate Studies, Faculty of Art and Design, Swansea Institute of Higher Education; originally from Ireland, she has written extensively on artists and writers practising in Wales and Ireland.

Pontrhydfendigaid and Kells, Strata, June - August 2005