AMY RITTER

What Does it Feel Like to Be You, a site responsive installation in the Skirt space at Ortega y Gasset Projects, Curated by Co-Director Lauren Whearty.

“Through close observation, Ritter challenges us to push back against the divisive forces of political and social polarization. In a world that thrives on dehumanization, What Does it Feel Like to Be You asks us to see, to listen, and to recognize each other’s full humanity—an act that, now more than ever, feels both radical and necessary.” -Lauren Whearty

Created specifically for the Skirt Space, I’m Never Leaving, depicts a panoramic and fractured image of my fathers dining and living room spaces.

Layered Photographic Xerox prints, OSB plywood, Monobloc Chair, 3D printed fly

16 FT x 4 FT x 2.5 FT

A video projection on the wall shows my fathers bathtub drain with a steady stream of water running. This viewer hears the sound of water running along with the buzzing of flys. Every winter my dad leaves the water running in all the faucets in order to keep the pipes from freezing, another marker of class.

Snow | Ash depicts an image from my childhood of my two sisters and I in a record breaking snow storm in PA in 1996 and a current image of my fathers home in the background. Both images depict a large Ash tree in the background decades apart. This Ash tree has since been removed because it threatened to fall on my fathers home and it took me reporting the issue to the local newspaper for the mobile home community to act.

Photographic Xerox print, OSB plywood

61 IN x 45.5 IN x .5 IN

I created concrete pavers to mimic broken, cracked, and stained asphalt pieces. Chalk drawings adorn them and wear as guests walk over them.

Concrete, paint, ink, tar, chalk

Varying sizes 

This is a still image from my 2023 film, Fear | Comfort. In this 16 minute film I light birthday candles on top of a cardboard cut out of my dads home and as they burn so does the home.

10 IN x18 IN

Hahnemuehle Photo Pearl paper, Edition of 10

The fly rotates slowly on top of a asphalt paver

Concrete, paint, ink, tar, cigarette, 3D printed fly

18 In x 18 IN x 8 IN

Photographic Xerox collage, graphite

8 IN × 6 IN

7 recordings of peoples American Dreams from my father’s mobile home community, Li’l Wolf

7:10

Hahnemuehle Photo Pearl paper, Edition of 5

11 IN x 14 IN

Archival Inkjet print on enhanced matte paper, edition of 10

11 IN x 14 IN

Cast concrete

4 IN x 10 IN

In 2015, Ritter created the MH Archive to document the forgotten and marginalized mobile home communities across the United States. Through meticulous documentation consisting of interviews, photography, recordings, and video, Ritter has gained a deeper understanding of the diverse world of manufactured housing. This ongoing process of visiting mobile home parks now brings her back to where her interests originated, Li’l Wolf, her parents’ mobile home community in eastern Pennsylvania. Using her father’s camcorder from the ’90s, she turns her focus inside her childhood home for the first time. She offers the audience a glimpse into her father’s life by investigating the spaces he inhabits.

Digital Video, 16 min

When the visitor first steps into the gallery, they are confronted by Li’l Wolf 6, part of the artist’s ongoing MH Window Series. In this life-sized photograph, taken of a window at her parents’ home, Ritter captures the exterior of a world often guarded and hidden from society. Installed opposite the photograph is the video “Happy Birthday Dean.” Here, Ritter gives the viewer an intimate tour of the inside of her father’s home, culminating with footage from a recent birthday party. The celebration evokes feelings of nostalgia in her father and a yearning for his childhood—a time when things were easier for him. As his age has increased, so too have his fears and resistance to change, encapsulated by the fifteen-minute video Fear | Comfort, projected on the central wall.

64 x 68.5 x .5 inches

Digital film from vintage camcorder, 9 min

The insecurities that haunt Ritter’s father flicker across the projector and TV screen. But, unlike the details of his home’s exterior, they remain partly hidden from view. The viewer is asked to project onto Ritter’s father their own baggage about the American Dream. Seen through his daughter’s lens, he becomes a window into the psyche of an entire generation, leaving us with the question: “How do we restore the dignity of those who get left behind?”

archival inkjet prints mounted on steel, 28.75 x 12.75 inches

archival inkjet prints mounted on steel, 28.75 x 12.75 inches

MH Archive is the next step in a wider exploration of documenting mobile home culture in the US, contextualized by our nationwide affordable housing crisis.

For the past 10 years I’ve documented mobile home parks (over 100 sites in over 18 states) and interviewed residents; compiled research on the mobile home industry and culture; and created and exhibited work influenced by these archives I’ve built and my personal history growing up in a double-wide trailer in eastern Pennsylvania.

I’m continuing to visit mobile home parks throughout the United States, systematically archiving with overarching research questions around the American Dream, specifically the myth of social mobility and the stigma and shame around places we call home. Check out my blog in the navigation bar to read more.

My first stop was in Florida where I spent 1 month as an Associate Artist at The Atlantic Center for the Arts. Here I visited over 13 neighborhoods. The video above shows a golf cart tour of what was an old fish camp community built along the intracoastal waterway.

I met Debbie & Diane on one of my visits to a MH park. They were really sweet and showed me around and even invited me inside their homes. They shared stories about their lives and neighborhood.

While in Colorado I visited Ponderosa MHP with Crystal Launder, a housing planner, to talk about the annexation of Ponderosa by the city. The city plans on upgrading the infrastructure, build new homes to deepen the affordability and safety of this neighborhood.

This is an ongoing project of collecting people’s American Dreams specifically from lower income marginalized communities

@ Franconia Sculpture Park

Cinder block, mortar, concrete, photographic Xerox prints

Wall 1: 92 IN x 128 IN x 8IN, Wall 2: 72 IN x 128 IN x 8 IN, Wall 3: 76 IN x 176 IN x 8 IN

Shafer Terrace is a manufactured/ mobile home park (MHP) located just 2.8 miles West of Franconia Sculpture Park. These three homes were photographed in that neighborhood and erected here at Franconia to bring visibility to affordable housing and to break down socio-spacial stigmas that have shrouded these communities for years.

The artist grew up in a mobile home park in Eastern, PA and its through her work that she explores topics of class and exposes the shame phenomenon while humanizing manufactured home residents, an underrepresented community. She's allowing the viewer the privilege to view these homes as if they are walking through the neighborhood itself. She would like you to think about your connection to home and perceptions on manufactured housing.

Video of installation

@ Mohonk Arts Studio, UPAW, 2021

Xerox print, cinderblocks, mortar, garden flag

64 IN x 120 IN x 8 IN

56 IN x 48 IN x 8 IN

Xerox print, cinderblocks, mortar

Public sculpture installed at Loyola University from January 28th - March 20th 2020

Mobile home parks exist at the very lowest rungs of the American affordable housing hierarchy and are relegated to the outskirts of urban spaces. This work, an on-going sculptural project architected by artist Amy Ritter, provides a visual voice to these marginalized, and often stigmatized, communities. Born in an Eastern Pennsylvania mobile home, Ritter is motivated by her origins, and creates to educate, embrace, and bring transparency to a community often overlooked.

Mobile home located 10 miles South East of Loyola College

This is the entrance to Liberty Mobile Home Park located in Baltimore, MD

Process shot

Process shot

54 IN x 64 IN x 10 IN

Cinder blocks, Photographic Xerox print

Located at Art Port Kingston Gallery

4 FT x 4 FT x 10 IN

Found Cinderblocks, brick, Xerox photographic print

Jasper Street is located in North Philadelphia and was the location of this site-specific sculpture. This is a detail of a larger installation of two walls that were erected on the site of a torn down apartment building. Each day I would bike past this construction site until I decided to stop and build my own pop up homes with the leftover materials. Using found cinderblock and brick I built walls and adhered images of two different homes from a mobile home park located approximately one-hour North of Philadelphia. This work is commenting on the disappearance of affordable housing.

Jaspe St. installation video

@ The Old Stone House, Brooklyn, 2022

"For more than two centuries, economic opportunity and upward mobility have formed the foundation of the American Dream, and they remain at the core of our nation’s identity." (bit.ly/PewTrusts_AmericanDream)

We all have some predisposed idea of what the "American Dream" is and how we can obtain it. There’s the idea that if you work hard you will be rewarded with upper mobility and the notion that you will surpass your parents’ generation in income stability. What do you picture when you envision your dream(s): Is it a nice home for your family? Becoming debt free? Freedom? Did you grow up with this phrase and if so, how has it shaped you? This questionnaire is both virtual and in the form of a physical mailbox where you can hand write or draw a picture of what your dream is and drop it through the mailbox slot.

This survey is the next step in a wider exploration of class in the US, contextualized by our nationwide affordable housing crisis and how the American Dream shapes who we are.

This survey is anonymous. The information will be used for a forthcoming artist book about the American Dream and for identifying community concerns to share with local legislation. It’s my hope to be able to share the thoughts of Americans from all over the country so that we can begin to visualize our needs and the needs of others.

CLICK ON ME TO GO TO SURVEY!

@ Queens Musuem

Future Narratives event sponsored by More Art & the Queens Museum.

Artist as Institution: A conversation between Amy Ritter, Andrew Freiband, and Esther Neff.

Click here to listen!

This map shows the locations of mailbox | ballot boxes across the US. This project first started in NYC and is continually growing.

Find a location near you —> Click here

Host a mailbox | ballot box in your community, institution, or local park. Please send an email to mh.theamericandream@gmail.com for more information.

Exhibition titled: Built-in

@ Loyola University, Julio Fine Arts Gallery, Baltimore, MD

69.5 IN x 19.5 IN x 62 IN

Xerox print, wood paneling laminated plywood, 2x4’s

Install view of figural sculpture, Built-in.

58.5 IN x 93.5 IN x 0.5 IN

Xerox print, OSB plywood

41.5 IN x 69.5 IN x 0.5 IN

Xerox print, OSB plywood

46 IN x 71 IN x 0.5 IN

Xerox print, OSB plywood

47 IN x 25 IN x 0.5 IN

Xerox print on OSB plywood

Xerox print, OSB plywood

8 IN x 6 IN

Drawings made with graphite stick on acid free paper

MH refers to Mobile Home. This is a selection of MH park drawings I began when archiving mobile home parks through digital photos and through journaling. These drawings depict a map of each neighborhood through a line drawing.

9.5 IN x 23 IN x 15.75 IN

Cinderblock, OSB plywood, concrete casted heating vent

Xerox photographic images pasted to the façade of the gallery in upstate NY.

Largest figure is 17 FT tall

This project was part of a solo exhibition I had in upstate NY in the spring of 2019 called FAÇADE | SCAFFOLD. I wanted to create a human scaffolding using the body as building material to talk about class hierarchy and social mobility. Using scale and the structure of scaffolding the figures build their own way up to the top and comment on the female body and its labor in connection to class. This installation has been on view since May 2019 and is currently still on display.

Detail of two figures with cinder blocks

Process shot of using scaffolding to install this work.

Photo courtesy of LeAnna Click

This shows how the facade of this gallery looked as I began painting it black.

Photo courtesy of LeAnna Click

9 IN x 6 IN

Archival Inkjet Print, edition of 20

8 IN x 12 IN

Archival Inkjet Print, edition of 20

Wood paneling, paint, xerox prints, ink, tape

A scaled down model collage of the facade of the gallery as a way to figure out scale, gesture, & positioning.

8 FT x 4 FT x 4 FT

Xerox photographic print, wood paneling, cinderblocks, brick, gravel

@ The Museum of Sex

8 FT x 4 FT x 4 FT

Photographic xerox print, wood paneling, cinderblocks, gravel

@ The Porch Gallery

Xerox print, cardboard, casted concrete, cinderblock

9 FT x 4 FT x 4 FT

@ ROY G BIV Gallery, OH

7 x 19.5 x 46 feet

Fully equipped with landscaping, gravel lot, front walkway, lawn ornaments, staircase, oil tank, lamppost, electricity, and water hook up.

@ Socrates Sculpture Park

Within the dimensions of a standard mobile home plot, I combine all the amenities and embellishments that make a site a home, including regular lawn maintenance and seasonal decorations. Located at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City; the erasure of space where a mobile home once resided can be understood as a reminder of the lack of equitable, sustainable housing as a problem for both urban and rural American communities. A Take-One box was placed on the property to share information about the neighborhood and to advertise the lot for rent.

My mother, brother, and uncle all helped with the installation of this sculpture. My mother donated plants from her own MH garden. My brother helped construct some of the carpentry elements, my uncle advised me on planting and watering. The Stairs were built to the same specifications of my parents mobile and then transported to their home and installed after the show.

Skowhegan Performs 2017

Johnny Strom performs by mowing the lawn of “Singlewide”. Props include: 6 pack of beer, cigarettes, lawn mower, boombox playing classic rock. This performance comments on the socio-stigmas and stereotypes that surround mobile home life.

58.5 IN x 93.5 IN x 0.5 IN

Birch Meadows 1 is part of a window series depicting both a pictorial view and characterization of a particular space and community within mobile home parks. This has been an intimate portrait project stemming from my current practice of archiving mobile home parks across the united states. The texture from the OSB plywood comes through the image that has been pasted to the wood and layered with reflection that allows for an outsider to have an intimate view into the world of mobile home parks and the issues surrounding affordable housing.

64 IN x 68.5 IN x .5 iN

46 IN x 71 IN x .5 IN

48.75 IN x 44.5 IN x 0.5 IN

47 IN x 25 IN x .5 IN

41.5 IN x 69.5 IN x .5 IN

46.25 x 24.75

59 IN x 37 IN x .5 IN

65 IN x 61 IN x .5 IN

48 IN x 39 IN x .5 IN

site specific installation

45 IN x 94 IN x 14 IN

Photographic xerox prints, OSB plywood

34 Ft x 4 Ft x 5 IN

Xerox photographic prints, plywood

This grouping of photographic mobile home plywood cut-outs is a traveling work that has been installed in several locations. This iteration was installed in 2016 in a field at Truro Air Force Base located off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The homes are staked into the ground; installed individually or in groupings to give them either an idyllic setting or placed in a highly visible location. This is a sampling of mobile homes I’ve photographed in a specific geographical location and shows how I’ve used the mobility of this installation as a way to share it with different communities.

Installed on the front lawn of Arlington Arts Center, VA

Front of home: 8 FT x 8 FT print

Xerox photographic print

This installation was created in Johnson VT in an abandoned mobile home. The image on the front of the home was taken from a photo album found inside. The image depicts Houston Harris who’s ring name was BOBO Brazil was an American wrestler known for breaking down racial segregation in professional wrestling. The interior image on the left was taken in a mobile home park located down the road from the homes site.

Interior left image: 8 FT x 17 FT

Interior right: 8 FT X 5 FT

64.5 IN x 147 IN x 45 IN

Photographic xerox print, OSB plywood, 2x4’s, cinderblocks

Photo credit: Sam Morgan Photography

photo credit: Jacob Koestler

Photographic xerox print, Wood paneling, plywood, 2x4’s, cinderblocks

Photographic xerox print, plywood, 2x4’s, cinderblocks

Photographic xerox print, plywood, 2x4’s, cinderblocks

Photographic xerox print, plywood cutouts

2016 @ Hudson D. Walker Gallery

Photographic color xerox print, OSB plywood, Cinderblock

46 IN x 36 IN x 10 IN

Xerox print, cardboard

2014

9'x8'x6"

Xerox print, cardboard

2014@ ROY G BIV

5'x 3.5'

Xerox print, Cardboard

2014

8'x2.5'

Xerox print, board, tar

2014@ Urban Arts Space

8'6"x7'8"

Xerox print, cardboard, casted concrete, cinderblock

2014 @ Urban Arts Space

Variable dimensions

Video of the installation "This Embrace" to show scale 

@ The Urban Arts Space

Xerox print, cardboard, concrete

2014 @ The Urban Arts Space

figures are 46" tall

35 IN x 48 IN x .5 IN, edition of 3

photographic xerox print, roofing tar, wood paneling

Miniature series editions available

11 IN x 17 IN x .5 IN

Photographic xerox print, roofing tar, wood paneling

Miniature series editions available

5 IN x 5 IN, edition of 5

This is a photograph taken in my studio of me with a projection of my parents Mobile Home house on my body.

In the Collection of LAWRENCE MILLER

5 IN x 5 IN, edition of 5

5 IN x 5 IN, edition of 5

8 IN x 10 IN, archival inkjet prints

This is a series of Mobile Homes with defining Hedges that act as both a barrier of protection and privacy and also as an aestheticizing feature.

In the collection of MARTIN Z. MARGULIES COLLECTION

Photographic xerox print, mounted to wood panel, steel frame, Editions available

Photo credit: Neil Kohl

Photographic xerox prints, mounted to wood panel, stell frame, Editions available

Photo credit: Neil Kohl

Photo credit: Neil Kohl

Photographic Xerox print

Photographic xerox print, chalk, roofing tar, mounted to wood panel

Xerox print, cardboard

2014 @ Vermont Studio Center 

11" w x 17" h

9.5 IN x 23 IN x 15.75 IN

Cinderblock, OSB plywood, concrete casted heating vent

Concrete, rebar, wood

2014 @ Urban Arts Space, Columbus OH

14"x36"

Concrete, chair

2014 @ Urban Arts Space

Concrete, wood

2013

13"x 16"x 6"

Xerox Image

North Philadelphia, PA

Xerox photographic print

North Philadelphia, PA

Xerox Image, Cinder blocks

FDR Skate Park, Philadelphia, PA

2013 @ The Soap Factory

Glass, lard, wood

Glass and soot

2013

Digital Prints

2013

This series of photographs explores the relationship physically and emotionally to the material of glass. The forms were made by blowing glass into denim jeans from a series call "Pants Blow".

A video showing the process of making the Pants Blow Series. 

Kép Klub Interview

Zalaegerszeg, Hungary

Mixer Residency, 2015

http://kepklub.tumblr.com

Szilvie's Garage Doors

Zalaegerszeg, Hungary

2015