There's no doubt Ascot has never seen anything like it. Natasha O'Connell's extraordinary hat has the architectural features of a bridge shrouded in nets, on top of which a white dove is wrapped in barbed wire. She calls it Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Such contrasts are what an exhibition in the European Parliament is all about. It is the work of students from Ireland, Austria, France and Italy. Funded in part by the EU's Comenius programme, "Conflict within the world of Art and Design" was opened last night by the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume MEP.
The Irish contribution is from Ballycastle High School, Co Antrim, and its neighbour, Cross and Passion College. They share an A-level art teacher in Ms Elma Johnston, who has brought over 25 students and a multimedia exhibition.
The challenge, she says, is to encourage students to explore the sources of conflict in such fields as politics, the environment, culture and the personal.
Yet, perhaps inevitably, it is a work touching on the North's conflict which is among the most startling. Mark Nicholl's striking A Day at the Carnival is a reflection on the Omagh bomb - a familiar streetscape, unnaturally darkened by tragedy, a car tyre symbolising the bomb, a bloodied face, and, among the scorched debris, a Mothercare bag.
Reflecting the students' use of many textures, Melanie Baird explores sectarian divisions in the design and execution of a waistcoat, A Stitch in Time, a sharply divided front of flags and the back a quilt-like blending of shamrocks and lilies to show hope.
Mr Hume expressed his "tremendous pride" that students from the North had been chosen to exhibit their work in Brussels.
