Come to Thesis Film Screening of "Three Tours" Saturday May 21st at 5:00pm

May 18, 2016

“Three Tours” a film by Betty Yu

SCREENING as a part of the IMA/MFA
Integrated Media Arts Spring 2016 Thesis Show

Saturday, May 21st
starting at 5:00pm
@ Hunter College 68th St & Lexington Avenue (North Building)
Lang Auditorium & TV Studio, 4th Floor

About the film: "Three Tours" is a documentary film that captures the lives of three U.S. military veterans, Nicole Goodwin, Ramon Mejia & Ryan Holleran, as they work to heal their wounds and battle with PTSD resulting from their deployments in Iraq. The film follows their transformation from U.S. military trained soldiers to agents of change advocating for proper mental health treatment of veterans and an end to unjust wars.

“Three Tours” will be screened with other thesis projects by Wendell Cooper, Makia Harper, Walis Johnson & Lindsey Cordero that evening.

There will be a Q&A with all of the thesis presenters at the end of the show!

The entire thesis show runs from May 20th and 21st - see details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1683844345212791/

Chinatown Art Brigade Receives the 2016 A Blade of Grass Fellowship

April 24, 2016

Chinatown Art Brigade (made up of Betty Yu, Tomie Arai and ManSee Kong) received the 2016 A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art.

Working collectively as CHINATOWN ART BRIGADE, artist Tomie Arai and filmmakers ManSee Kong and Betty Yu will create Here to Stay, a project addressing gentrification, displacement and resilience in NYC’s Chinatown through community-led workshops and a public projection campaign incorporating original art and oral history in Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

From ARTNews

A Blade of Grass, the organization devoted to art that promotes social change, has named its 2016 ABOG Fellows for Socially Engaged Art. Each fellow will now receive $20,000, which can be used in any number of ways to support their respective projects. They range from Simone Leigh’s Home Economics, a series of workshops intended to foster critical thinking for black girls in New York City, to Xenobia Bailey’s Paradise Under Reconstruction, which combines elements of design and urban planning.

This is the third group of ABOG Fellows; the first was in 2014. The 2016 batch of fellows sees the introduction of the ABOG-David Rockefeller Fund Joint Fellowship in Criminal Justice, which is specifically awarded to artists whose work is involved with the criminal justice system. That fellowship’s winners are Rebecca Mwase and Ron Ragin, for Freedom Chamber, their collaboration with New Orleans organizations that allows for the production of sound sculptures that reflect the experiences of incarcerated people.

“These are artists who are changing what art is, who it’s for, and what it does,” Deborah Fisher, the executive director of A Blade of Grass, said in a statement. “We nurture these artists in a way that is specifically geared toward increasing the effectiveness and visibility of their work, and understanding its value both within the contemporary art discourse and the broader culture.”

Below is the list of fellows and winning projects.

Xenobia Bailey, Paradise Under Reconstruction
Black Quantum Futurism, Community Futurisms: Time & Memory in North Philly; individual artists: Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips
Courtney Bowles and Mark Strandquist, People’s Reentry Think Tank
Chinatown Art Brigade, Here to Stay; individual artists: Tomie Arai, ManSee Kong, and Betty Yu
Joseph Cullier, The Black School
Simone Leigh, Home Economics
Rebecca Mwase and Ron Ragin, Freedom Chamber
Rulan Tangen, Redgeneration
Frances Whitehead, Fruit Futures Initiative Gary

Betty receives a Brooklyn Arts Council (Brooklyn Arts Fund Grant) for a new interdisciplinary project

March 30, 2016

Betty Yu received a 2015 Brooklyn Arts Council grant for her new interdisciplinary cultural art project, "Celebrating Our Ancestors at Sunset" which will bring together mainly Chinese and Latino Sunset Park residents together to pay homage to their ancestors through reproducing images of their loved ones and written text transferred onto pieces of colorful fabric. These will be woven together to create one collective art piece.

The project is slated to begin in the Fall 2016.

Betty with Morgan Tachco of Brooklyn Arts Council

Betty Joins Asian American Arts to Form Chinatown Art Brigade

March 01, 2016

In 2015, artists Tomie Arai, ManSee Kong and Betty Yu formed the Chinatown Art Brigade, a new cultural collective that recognizes the power of art to advance social justice. As Asian American social justice minded artists, cultural workers and media makers we have roots in activism and movement-building work. We believe that art, culture and media work must serve and advance these social justice movements.

Currently, CAB is a project-drive collective that is working in close collaboration with CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities Chinatown Tenants Union, a grassroots organization that works with pan Asian communities around tenants rights, fighting evictions and building community empowerment.

As a new collective of Asian American social justice artists, cultural workers and media makers; our work is driven by the fundamental belief that collaboration with and accountability to those communities that are directly impacted by racial, social and economic inequities must be central to any cultural, art or media making process. Therefore we joined forces to launch ‘Here to Stay’, a project that includes a series of large-scale outdoor mobile projections that will address themes of gentrification, displacement and community resilience in NY Chinatown. Artwork based on oral histories, photography and video created in community-led workshops will be incorporated into photo and video montages that will be projected onto buildings and public landmarks in Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

Tomie Arai, ManSee Kong and Betty Yu, co-founding members of Chinatown Art Brigade

"City of Justice" at Brooklyn Museum's First Saturday - Jan. 2nd

March 01, 2016

On January 2nd, U.S. Department of Arts & Culture-NYC animated and transformed the Brooklyn Museum's 3rd floor Beaux Arts Court space into the "City of Justice" for the Museum's First Free Saturday where thousands of people come through the museum.

This interactive space was organized by the USDAC Field Office. Betty Yu, the NYC Cultural Agent curated the show in partnership with Bridget Bartolini and Nadia Mohamed, Field Office members.

We invited participants to an evening where we imagined 2016 and a future where social justice is realized through 10 participatory art-making stations that included poetry, letter writing, theater, body movement, storycircles, and story mapping. The planning team had some hesitations about organizing this when it was revealed that Brooklyn Museum had leased the space out to the Real Estate Summit for their annual gathering, (a major convening of the real estate giants that are the #1 gentrifying force). USDAC-NYC supported the community protests against the museum. And because of grassroots activism the museum welcomed open dialogue and criticism - we then decided to use the "City of Justice" event as an open space for creative imagination and forward-thinking solutions for housing justice.

Activist groups involved includes CAAAV Chinatown Tenants Union, Brotherhood SisterSol, Picture the Homeless and others.

Some of our creative imagination stations included:

“Letters to the Future”: where visitors write letters in the future
“Leaves of Hope”: write hopes for justice on their leaves that will
“Visions of Progress”: write on blocks of buildings defining "Home" and "Progress"
“Map Your Story”: contribute a story of displacement or gentrification
“Memoriam Graffiti Wall”: draw or write messages to honor ancestors and/or living s/heros in the fight for social justice
"Justice Story Circle": share your stories of hope and justice
"Poetry and Rhymes Corner": contribute to a collective poem that reflections our visions of liberation.
"Theatre of the Oppressed Corner": use your body to express collective images for justice

Check out the full photo album of photos from "City of Justice" at Brooklyn Museum

#DaretoImagine Week of Pop-Up Cultural Actions

November 13, 2015

During the week of Dare to Imagine in October 10-18th 2015, a week of creative actions and events organized by the U.S. Department of Arts & Culture - USDAC (a non-government people-powered arts and culture social justice network), Betty and others in NYC helped organize (4) NYC based large scale events. They collaborated with neighborhood residents and activists to design and structure the content. Collaborations included partnering with artists in East and West Harlem and groups like Picture the Homeless and Brotherhood/SisterSol. USDAC in NYC also collaborated with community-based art groups like The Laundromat Project, Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts (NOCD-NY), and JACK Art Center to hold Dare to Imagine activities.