Amanda Rice: From Sunlight to Extinction

curated by Noelle Collins
April 25 – May 25, 2025

Reception for the artist: 
Friday, April 25, 7:00 – 8:00 P.M.

Amanda Rice, The Flesh of Language, 2023. Courtesy the Artist.

From Sunlight to Extinction is an exhibition of new and recent works by Irish artist Amanda Rice. Working predominantly in film, Rice combines observational documentary techniques and staged scenarios with modes of investigative storytelling.  She is particularly interested in material histories related to ecological or geological subject matter which extend to the politics of land use, mineralogy, resource extraction and speculative or hidden histories embedded within landscapes and extracted matter. 

At 4th Ward Project Space, Rice presents two recent films, No One Can Ever Embargo the Sun (2021) and The Flesh of Language (2023). Both works explore power relations framed around extracted matter, from ancient artifacts such as sun discs and extinct ‘Irish Elk’ bones, to the modern detritus of the technological age, solar panels and extinct media. Rice will also show a new work in progress which explores Knock Iveagh, Co. Down, a hilltop site in Northern Ireland where ancient burial grounds and green energy solutions intersect. The exhibition is curated by Noelle Collins and is part of a wider programme with Askeaton Contemporary Arts.

Ireland’s Askeaton Contemporary Arts continues a growing relationship with the city of Chicago this April, presenting a citywide series of exhibitions and public events that debut the work of artists Liliane Puthod, Áine Mac Giolla Bhríde and Amanda Rice to Chicago audiences. Developed by curators Michael Hill, Noelle Collins and Mark O’Gorman, alongside artist Devin T. Mays, the programme is supported by exhibition partners Good Weather, 4th Ward Project Space and Weatherproof and by Culture Ireland, Consulate General of Ireland, EXPO Chicago, Independent Curators International and The Complex, Dublin. 

In linking artist-led activities between Ireland and the American Midwest, Askeaton Contemporary Arts acknowledge the openness and welcome for Irish artists and curators from a new generation of independent art spaces, each upholding a decades-long tradition in Chicago of ambitious ingenuity and egalitarian attitude to the shaping and sharing of culture.