La Longue Duree

Anthony Haughey's exhibition at the Gallery of Photography shows European conflict zones after the heat of war has abated, giving us a vision of the devestation of war even after living memory is gone. By Billy Leahy One of the most famous images snapped by reportage photographer Lee Miller during the Second World War was a self-portrait in which Man Ray's former muse enjoyed a playful and relaxing soak in what was once Hitler's bath. Despite throwing herself into the raging scenes of tumultuous battle as a war photographer, it was a photograph taken in the aftermath of Berlin's fall that became the iconic image.
Here was a former model, Parisian surrealist and friend of the French and New York avant-garde frolicking in a bathtub that, just weeks earlier, was probably occupied by the leader of the Third Reich. Given such a scenario, it was clear the war in Europe was at an end.
Photographs taken in the aftermath of war have little in common with those more sensationalist shots recorded by hungry news photographers in search of their next short-lived moment of glory on the following day's front page. Such images are media fodder – taken, printed and devoured in our news-ravenous society within 24 hours.
On the other hand, images documented in an area of conflict after the heat of combat has abated tend to be a whole lot more contemplative, both in terms of how the image is found or chosen by the photographer (this is not “capturing the moment”) and how the viewer reacts to it and is asked to ponder these deserted landscapes and discarded props.
This latter category of war photography forms Disputed Territory, a project of prominent Irish photographer Anthony Haughey since 1998, currently on display at the Gallery of Photography. In the series, Haughey attempts to explore conflict over territory and identity in contemporary Europe, with Ireland, Bosnia and Kosovo the main focus.
Disputed Territory could not be more understated or subtle – the images are deliberately everyday and visually flirt with the banal, while composition does not seem to be a major concern. The result of this is two-fold: firstly, the aesthetic element does not eclipse the contemplated reasoning behind the works; and secondly, the everyday nature of the pictures gives them an “any place, any time” feel.
Disputed Territory is the first of three exhibitions at the Gallery of Photography examining the complex and deeply intriguing relationship between art and the legacy of conflict. Art's reaction to conflict is by nature a considered and intellectual one, as it digests events before importing them to a creative context. Therefore, art needs distance and time in order to measure its response.
Documentation of events and horrific conflicts is of course hugely valuable, but it remains very one-dimensional and can become increasingly difficult to relate to when actual living memory of that time has passed. What art can offer, through its examination of the aftermath, is a constantly relevant body of work, where the emotional moments of conflict are removed and replaced with an examination of the long-term costs of conflict and the dregs of unseemly acts and deeds.
This is la longue durée, or the long moment, where art – inspired by the necessity to remember when time fades our recollection – provides a vehicle for sober reflection when living memory is gone. This is not a definite record of a particular event that is happening or has recently occurred, but rather a strong and measured symbolic response to the universal cost and consequences of those or similar actions. And for that, it is all the richer.
∏More Disputed Territory continues at the Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, until 15 April. 01 671 4654, www.irish-photography.com