Site Where a Future Never Took Place An exhibition by Amanda Rice in Ballina Arts Centre
Amanda Rice exhibtion, Site Where a Future Never Took Place was Curated by Paul McAree and will be officially opened by Gaynor Seville, Public Art Co-ordinator, Mayo County Council
on Friday 10th July at 8pm at Ballina Arts Centre, Barrett St., Ballina, Co. Mayo. The Exhibition runs until 29th August. This work has been made possible by an Arts Council of Ireland Project Award and Mayo County Council.
This exhibition is a series of new works by Amanda Rice which focuses on the collapse of Western Hats Ltd (1942-81) an Irish Textile industry in the west of Ireland. Established at a time of social and political turmoil in Europe this industry provided refuge to European Jewish exiles in the roles of ‘technical textile experts’ at Western Hats and otherwise provided huge local employment in times of grave austerity in the west of Ireland. The works in the show focus on the various remains of this industry making the viewer consider the past that could have been and a future which never unfolded.
The show includes a new video work and a series of artefacts or remains, particularity relating to the materiality of the site which have been gathered by either former employees of this industry or by the artist herself. The presented objects seek to question the nature of what constitutes value or the worth of an archival status. The somewhat incomplete collection of objects, constructions and video seeks to transmit the site in a fragmentary way evoking the present-ness of the site’s current condition.
Amanda Rice graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design in 2008 and has exhibited extensively across Ireland and internationally including shows at Flux Factory, New York; Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai and Platform China, Beijing.
This work has been made possible by the Arts Council of Ireland Project Award and Mayo County Council.
Ballina Arts Centre
Tel: 096 73593
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