VISUAL ARTS/NORTH

"After Omagh"

It's difficult sitting down to try to write an art column in the aftermath of Omagh. In the past, after atrocities, there was anger and revulsion at the deed and sympathy for the injured and bereaved. This was followed by a gradual return to what we call normal.

This time it's different. As the days go by there seems to be a build up of a shared grief and normality gets further and further away. I've found myself organising for an exhibition then switching on the radio, hearing coverage of the tragedy and feeling guilty. Guilty for being part of a normality that allows for planning and taking part in art projects. There is a feeling of flowing between the real and the unreal and not knowing which is which.

In a struggle to write something and to make some kind of sense of what is important in my life, I have tried to think if art has any meaning in any of this.

In ancient societies the artist as shaman would have had a very real role to play in the tragic events in the community of which s/he was a member. Could artists who make social or political comment contribute? Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger come to mind as both artists have had work shown in Belfast, but their type of poignant comment has already been made about Omagh by newspapers and on the radio. It is not comment that is needed now. What is needed is healing.

What about a work like Picasso's Guernica? It is a great twentieth century symbol of another atrocity but we have newspaper photographs and television images - what we need now is a way of overcoming the tragedy these images represent.

Art it seems is a bit like everything else, helpless in the face of such brutality. Only doctors, nurses and those who can offer counselling seem to be of immediate help.

Perhaps after a period of time we can gather strength and move forward. And there is a glimmer of hope. When I say Îwe' I feel that I really do mean everyone. There has been none of the usual or traditional division in the response to Omagh. It is sad and pathetic but it has taken this terrible grief to unite us. When we are ready to pick ourselves up, respect our differences and move forward art will then have a place in developing this normality.

Brian Kennedy