Betty Yu is a multimedia artist, filmmaker, educator and activist born and raised in NYC to Chinese immigrant parents. Ms. Yu's documentary "Resilience" about her garment worker mother fighting sweatship conditions screened at national and internati...More
Betty Yu is a multimedia artist, filmmaker, educator and activist born and raised in NYC to Chinese immigrant parents. Ms. Yu's documentary "Resilience" about her garment worker mother fighting sweatship conditions screened at national and international film festivals including the Margaret Media Film and Video Festival. Yu's multi-media installation, "The Garment Worker" was featured at Tribeca Film Institute's Interactive. She worked with housing activists and artists to co-create "People's Monument to Anti-Displacement Organizing" that was featured in the Agitprop! show at Brooklyn Museum. Betty was a 2012 Public Artist-in-Resident and received the 2016 SOAPBOX Artist Award from Laundromat Project. In 2017, Ms. Yu was awarded several artist residenceies from institutions such as the International Studio & Curatorial Program, Skimore College's Documentary Studeis Collaborative and SPACE at Ryder Farm. In 2015, Betty co-founded Chinatown Art Brigade, a cultural collective using art to advance anti-gentrification organizing. Betty won the 2017 Aronson Journalism for Social Justice Award for her film "Three Tours" about U.S. veterans returning home from war in Iraq and their journey to overcome their PTSD. Ms. Yu is a 2017-18 fellow of the Intercultural Leadership Institute. Betty receintly had her first solo exhibition, "(DIs)Placed in Sunset Park" at Open Source Gallery in September 2018 in New York City. Mrs. Yu's work has been exhibited, screened and featured at the International Center of Photography, Directors Guild of America, Brooklyn Museum, The Eastman Kodak Museum, Visual Communications Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival and No Longer Empty's pop up gallery. Betty is an adjunct assistant professor teaching new media, film theory, art and video production at various colleges in New York City, including The New School, John Jay College, Marymount Manhattan College and Hunter College. In addition Betty Yu sits on the boards of Third World Newsreel and Working Films, two progressive docuementary film organizations. She also sits on the advisory board of More Art, an arts organization promoting public art in the community. Betty is currently a 2019-2020 commissioned artist with the Highline creating public art highlighting the labor stories of the neighborhood. The work will be unveiled in the Spring of 2018 as a park's opening it's final section. Ms. Yu holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and a MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College. In addition, Betty has close to 20 years of community, media justice and labor organizing experience. Ms. Yu's organizing recognitions include being the recipient of the Union Square Award for grassroots activism and a semi-finalist of the National Brick "Do Something" Award for community leadership in Chinatown. Betty was a 2015 Cultural Agent with the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) a people powered network. She organized "City of Justice: New Year, New Futures" an anti-displacement interactive social justice, arts & activism event that featured 10 art, new media, culture and performance stations at Brooklyn Museum's First Saturday with thousands in attendance.
Less
The Arts in Society
