Betty Yu

I am a socially engaged multimedia artist, filmmaker, photographer, educator and activist born and raised in NYC to Chinese immigrant parents. My interdisciplinary multimedia work integrates documentary film, photography, collage, installation, new media platforms and community-infused approaches into my practice. I have used a mix of creative approaches that include installations, large-scale projections, interactive mapping, story circles, video, photography, multimedia storytelling, mixed media collage, walks, augmented reality, 360 video, and other new media platforms. I approach art and social justice issues through my own personal lens, family narrative and community’s history. My artistic practice is rooted in my own identity as a Chinese-American woman who is a daughter of immigrant garment workers, driven by social justice principles. I draw inspiration from my family’s experience with immigration, displacement, labor exploitation and anti-Asian racism in the U.S. My work highlights personal stories that provide a portal into our collective narrative and our community’s search for justice, belonging and dignity. The themes of urban gentrification, the immigrant experience, racial injustice, labor rights, transgender equality and anti-militarism are interwoven throughout my work.

Betty Yu is a socially engaged multimedia artist, photographer, filmmaker, educator, and activist born and raised in NYC to Chinese immigrant parents. Ms. Yu integrates documentary film, new media platforms, and community-infused approaches into her artistic practice, Ms. Yu's documentary "Resilience" about her garment worker mother fighting sweatshop conditions screened at national and international film festivals including the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival. Yu's multi-media installation, "The Garment Worker" was featured at Tribeca Film Institute's Interactive Showcase. In 2020, she worked with housing activists create "Resistance in Progress" a multi-media installation featured at Queens Museum. Betty recently had her first solo exhibition, "(DIs)Placed in Sunset Park" at Open Source Gallery in September 2018 in New York City. This work was also included in 2019 BRIC’s Biennial where her project received an honorable mention in the New York Times. She has also exhibited at Brooklyn Museum, Apex Art Gallery, Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center, No Longer Empty, Old Stone House in Brooklyn, and SPACE Gallery . Ms. Yu has been awarded artist residencies and fellowships with institutions such as the Laundromat Project, International Studio & Curatorial Program, Asian American Arts Alliance, En Foco, Skidmore College’s Documentary Storytellers' Institute, KODA Lab, and Santa Fe Art Institute, Stone Leaf, Pratt Institute, China Residencies, Flux Factory and the Intercultural Leadership Institute, and SPACE at Ryder Farm.

In 2015, Betty co-founded Chinatown Art Brigade, a cultural collective using art to advance anti-gentrification organizing. Betty received the 2016 SOAPBOX Artist Award from Laundromat Project. 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 had her curatorial debut in the Fall 2020 as she presents “Imagining De-Gentrified Futures”, an exhibition that will feature artists of color, activists and others along with her own work at Apex Art in Tribeca, NYC.

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, Pratt Institute Marymount Manhattan College and Hunter College. Ms. Yu's films have been screened and featured at the Directors Guild of America, Sydney International Transgender Film Festival, MESA Film Festival, andVisual Communications Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival. Betty is a 2016 A Blade of Grass Fellow for Socially Engaged Art for her project with Chinatown Art Brigade. Ms. Yu has received numerous grants for our work including support from Art Matters Foundation, Asian Womens Giving Circle, Brooklyn Arts Council, Wave Farm Media Arts and the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media.

In addition Betty Yu sits on the boards of Third World Newsreel and Working Films, two progressive documentary film organizations. She also sits on the advisory board of More Art, an arts organization promoting public art in the community. Ms. Yu holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and a MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College.

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.

Her work has received coverage in outlets including New York Times, HBO VICE News Tonight, i-D Vice Media, Art Forum, ARTNews, Sinovision, Hyperallergic, E-Flux, La Belle Revue Art Journal & Studio International.