Where the Heart Is: Portraits from American Trailer and Mobile Home Parks
Kathleen Tunnell Handel | United States
Photographer: Kathleen Tunnell Handel
Exhibit Title: Where the Heart Is: Portraits from American Trailer and Mobile Home Parks
Location: United States
As the availability of affordable housing implodes, with eviction rates and financial instability surpassing crisis levels, this ongoing spatial justice collaboration - Where the Heart Is: Portraits from American Trailer and Mobile Home Parks, investigates and advocates for this deeply impacted, primarily American housing form and its twenty-two million residents.
Begun in 2017, Kathleen Tunnell Handel’s multimedia project challenges the ingrained stigmatizion of and lack of protection for residents who live in communities of manufactured homes (as trailer and mobile homes are being rebranded). Informed by research, conversations while photographing and video interviewing residents, and collaboration with sociologists, urban planners, and housing advocates, Where the Heart Is reveals and archives what’s rapidly being lost of this largest, un-subsidized form of low-income housing, while amplifying resident’s and advocate’s voices.
Tunnell Handel’s studies in life sciences at Cornell University, through being awarded a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, to ongoing photography related studies, have all contributed to her deep interest in visual culture and themes of life systems and the human experience.
Tunnell Handel lives in NYC.
Exhibit States:
Photography - Maine, New Jersey, California, Texas, Colorado, New York, Georgia, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Arizona
Video Interviews - Michigan, Indiana, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, New Hampshire, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Idaho, Arizona, New York, and California
Drone Photography - New York
As the availability of affordable housing implodes, with eviction rates and financial instability surpassing crisis levels, this ongoing project -Where the Heart Is: Portraits from American Trailer and Mobile Home Parks investigates and advocates for this deeply impacted, primarily American housing form and its residents. This multi-media, spatial justice collaboration challenges the ingrained stereotyping of the estimated 22 million Americans who live in communities of manufactured homes (as stigmatized trailer and mobile homes are being rebranded), revealing and archiving what’s rapidly being lost in their communities, while amplifying resident’s and advocate’s voices.
My eye and heart are informed by conversations and recorded interviews with community residents from around the country, collaboration with professionals and scholars like Dr. Esther Sullivan – Sociologist, author, and advocate at UC Denver, and my affiliation with the national housing advocacy non-profit – Manufactured Housing Action (MHAction).
I’m especially drawn to photograph the yards and entryways around homes where individual choices in ornamentation and landscaping reveal the personalities of the unseen occupants and capture their notions of welcome, of beauty, and of home. Portraits of individual homes are also visually classified and constructed into a library of typology grids, archiving differences and commonalities within and across communities and states.
Expanding gentrification around many parks has increased the vulnerability of the essential workers, families, veterans, immigrants, and retiree residents, who rely on this largest, un-subsidized form of low-income housing. The lack of protective regulations make parks the target of equity investors, often leading to the loss of affordability for the leased site under residents’ self-owned homes, with subsequent harassment, eviction, and displacement.
Where the Heart Is was begun in 2017 with travels photographing within communities, to date, in Maine, New Jersey, California, Texas, Colorado, New York, Georgia, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Arizona.
Recorded video interviews of resident's personal experiences froma number of these and eleven additional statesincluding Wyoming, Ohio, and Floridaare integral components of the project’s narrative as short clips, for book quotes, for videos incorporating my imagery with commissioned drone footage and recorded interview clips, and collaborative exhibition opportunitiesin service to affordable housing advocacy.
KATHLEEN TUNNELL HANDEL
https://www.kathleentunnellhandel.com
https://www.instagram.com/kathleen_tunnellhandel/?hl=en
IG @kathleen_tunnellhandel
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