Biography - Amanda Rice
Amanda Rice is a visual artist living and working between Mayo and Cork. Rice works in lens based media, light and video to create installations which explore the remains of failed utopian systems.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally, selected exhibitions include 2013; A Spectacular Form of Amnesia, (Solo), the Customs House Gallery and Studios, Ireland, NLA IV, Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) 2012; Watching the River Flow, Curated by Sean Walsh, Centro de Artes, Portugal, Cutting a Door curated by Robert O Connor, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, 2011: CUBEOpen 2011 (work shortlisted for annual residency at CUBELab2012) at the CUBEGallery, Manchester.
In 2013 she was awarded a Scholarship though the Province of Styria (Austria) and an Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training award for the production of ‘A Spectacular Form of Amnesia’ and was exchange artist to AIR Krems, Austria (through the Customs House Gallery and Studios). Other awards include Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training and Cork City Council Twinning Award for the BIAP Platform China Residency in 2011.
Rice was a member and contributor to visual arts collective Cork Contemporary Projects (2009-2010). Her work can be found in the collections of Cork City Council (2012) and CIT (2008) and a variety of private collections.
[email protected]
Amanda Rice is a visual artist living and working between Mayo and Cork. Rice works in lens based media, light and video to create installations which explore the remains of failed utopian systems.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally, selected exhibitions include 2013; A Spectacular Form of Amnesia, (Solo), the Customs House Gallery and Studios, Ireland, NLA IV, Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) 2012; Watching the River Flow, Curated by Sean Walsh, Centro de Artes, Portugal, Cutting a Door curated by Robert O Connor, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, 2011: CUBEOpen 2011 (work shortlisted for annual residency at CUBELab2012) at the CUBEGallery, Manchester.
In 2013 she was awarded a Scholarship though the Province of Styria (Austria) and an Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training award for the production of ‘A Spectacular Form of Amnesia’ and was exchange artist to AIR Krems, Austria (through the Customs House Gallery and Studios). Other awards include Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training and Cork City Council Twinning Award for the BIAP Platform China Residency in 2011.
Rice was a member and contributor to visual arts collective Cork Contemporary Projects (2009-2010). Her work can be found in the collections of Cork City Council (2012) and CIT (2008) and a variety of private collections.
[email protected]
FIND PROJECT - STATEMENT
Location: Live Tug of War on the Mall on 29th of March
Archive: For the month of April at the Linenhall.
Active from 1942- 1981Western Hats Ltd. was a significant economic presence and major employer in Castlebar for four decades. Amanda Rice has been working closely with the former employees of Western Hats in compiling a body of research on this prominent local company. As part of FIND she focuses on a fascinating discovery of a photograph of the factory’s all-ladies tug-of-war team which relates to a one-off event that took place in Castlebar in 1958. Through contemporary accounts gathered from participants and eyewitnesses, Rice will re-stage the event with the aid of the relatives from the original team on The Mall in Castlebar - the original site of the 1958 event.
By comparing varied and conflicting versions of the event, disparities and distortions associated with re-constructive memory are revealed. Thus the re-staged tug-of-war is not so much a literal re-enactment as a fictitious account that reflects the subjectivity of recollected history. It seeks to act as celebratory event chronicling a forgotten and seemingly arbitrary trace of a major contributor to Castlebar’s industrial and social history.
The artist acknowledges with warmest thanks local historians Ernie and Susanna Sweeney, all of the former employees and relatives of Western Hats, St. Josephs Secondary School Transition Years and the Connaught Tug-of-War Clubs for their generous assistance in the realisation of this project..
Location: Live Tug of War on the Mall on 29th of March
Archive: For the month of April at the Linenhall.
Active from 1942- 1981Western Hats Ltd. was a significant economic presence and major employer in Castlebar for four decades. Amanda Rice has been working closely with the former employees of Western Hats in compiling a body of research on this prominent local company. As part of FIND she focuses on a fascinating discovery of a photograph of the factory’s all-ladies tug-of-war team which relates to a one-off event that took place in Castlebar in 1958. Through contemporary accounts gathered from participants and eyewitnesses, Rice will re-stage the event with the aid of the relatives from the original team on The Mall in Castlebar - the original site of the 1958 event.
By comparing varied and conflicting versions of the event, disparities and distortions associated with re-constructive memory are revealed. Thus the re-staged tug-of-war is not so much a literal re-enactment as a fictitious account that reflects the subjectivity of recollected history. It seeks to act as celebratory event chronicling a forgotten and seemingly arbitrary trace of a major contributor to Castlebar’s industrial and social history.
The artist acknowledges with warmest thanks local historians Ernie and Susanna Sweeney, all of the former employees and relatives of Western Hats, St. Josephs Secondary School Transition Years and the Connaught Tug-of-War Clubs for their generous assistance in the realisation of this project..
