What Does it Feel Like To Be You
Amy Ritter
Curated by Lauren Whearty
March 22nd to Saturday May 31st,  2025
Opening Reception Saturday March 22nd, 5-8 pm

Ortega y Gasset Projects is proud to present Amy Ritter’s new body of work, What Does it Feel Like to Be You, site responsive installation in our Skirt space. Curated by Co-Director Lauren Whearty, the exhibition constructs a deeply personal yet universally resonant portrait of the artist’s father through layered depictions of his home and surroundings.

Ritter’s father has lived for more than 40 years in Lil’ Wolf, a mobile home community in Orefield, Pennsylvania, where she was raised. Through layered depictions of his home—both its interior and the surrounding neighborhood—Ritter examines notions of memory, identity, and connection. The physicality of her materials like Xerox photographic prints, the texture of an early digital video, and the use of working-class materials like plywood and asphalt mirrors the tactile nature of recollection and care, bridging generational and ideological divides through deep observation and empathy. The creation of this work is itself an act of care, finding empathy and connection across barriers made from contrasting views and politics.  

Ritter reflects on the past and present by walking us through an environment that combines interior and exterior views of the home and its surrounding neighborhood. Old family photos are combined with recent documentation as Ritter forms her father’s character with complexity and sensitivity. Viewers are invited to step into this world, yet they remain distanced—fragmented reflections in window panes obscure full access, mediating our perspective.

The constant pace of a dripping faucet, left on to prevent the pipes from freezing, is an immersive element that makes us acutely aware of time’s passing. The disrepair and staining of asphalt, sculptures of flies, and imagery of an untidy home are reminders of class and become metaphors for human struggles.

One of the main images seen in the installation is two snapshots of a childhood pet. The benign and sentimental nature of the photo belies the darker memory held within. Ritter recalls, “The manicured lawn with the arborvitae acts as a fence to keep the neighbors invisible. The landscape has since changed enormously. This cat was my father's and he cared deeply for it. One day the cat was gone and she had been very sick so we were told she went to the vet and was put down. Probably a decade later we came to find out my dad had taken her out back of the shed and shot her in the head to put her out of her misery. He buried her behind the shed where many of our family's pets were laid to rest. They couldn't afford to take the pets to the vet.”

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.

“All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life—where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.” — Miranda July, It Chooses You

Artist Bio
Amy Ritter (b. 1986, Orefield, PA) is a visual artist, educator, and fabricator living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Amy Ritter received a BFA from Tyler School of Art in 2009 and an MFA from The Ohio State University in 2014. For the past decade she’s documented mobile home parks (over 50 sites in over 18 states), and interviewed residents. She’s created and exhibited work influenced by these archives built on her own personal history growing up in a double-wide trailer. She’s continuing to visit mobile home parks throughout the United States, systematically archiving with overarching questions around the American Dream, specifically the myth of social mobility and the stigma around manufactured housing.

Ritter has shown her work nationally for over a decade. She’s been awarded numerous residencies and fellowships; selected honors include Fine Arts Work Center, MA (2016), Skowhegan, ME (2016), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Resident, NY (2017), a Fellowship at Yaddo, NY (2020), an Engaging Artist Fellowship at More Art, NY (2021), A Puffin Foundation Grant (2022), NYFA fellowship (2023), Anderson Ranch Resident (2024), and will be attending Sante Fe Art Institute for their Community & Practice Residency (June 2025). She has shown her public sculptures at MOCA Arlington, Socrates Sculpture Park, Franconia Sculpture Park, Loyola University, Upstate Arts Weekend, The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, The Old Stone House in Brooklyn, and The Porch Gallery and is continuing to find ways to share her work with the public outside of the traditional gallery spaces.

Curator Bio

Lauren Whearty is an artist, educator, and curator living and working in Philadelphia, PA. 

She received her MFA from The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH), and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (Philadelphia, PA). Whearty has been a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run curatorial collective and non-profit in Brooklyn, NY since 2017, and currently teaches at Tyler School of Art & Architecture.

She has attended residencies such as Yale’s Summer School of Art through the Ellen Battel Stoeckel Fellowship, The Vermont Studio Center, Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat through the Ora Lerman Trust, and the Golden Foundation Artist Residency. She has recently received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and Joseph Roberts Foundation. She is currently one of Mercer County Community College’s inaugural artists in residence and will soon be attending her first international fellowship at Ballinglen in Ireland.

Some places where her work has been exhibited include The Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, DE), The State Museum of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa), The Woodmere Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Gross McCleaf Gallery (Philadelphia, Pa), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Bridgette Mayer Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Center for Emerging Visual Artists (Philadelphia, PA), Eckert Gallery (Millersville, PA), Satellite Contemporary (Las Vegas, NV), Monaco (St Louis, MO), The Painting Center (New York, NY), Ortega y Gasset Projects (Brooklyn, NY), 11 Newel (Brooklyn, NY), Underdonk (Brooklyn, NY), Sam and Adele Golden Gallery (New Berlin, NY), and Deanna Evans Projects (Brooklyn, NY).