Multimedia artist and educator Betty Yu shared her incredible work with NYU Art+Education students on Nov. 17th, including her personal work and collective efforts as a co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade. After beginning with a land acknowledgement, Yu talked about her own family history and relationship to New York City. As an artist, Yu focuses on the use of digital and collective storytelling practices as a way to amplify the voices of those most impacted by housing injustice and gentrification, starting in Sunset Park, Brooklyn where she was raised. Her project, (Dis)Placed in Sunset Park is an interactive multimedia project that allows visitors to take a virtual tour of Sunset Park and experience the stories of Latinx and Chinese (im)migrants, workers and residents through short videos presented through an augmented reality technology (AR) app.
In addition to her own work, Yu is a member and co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade (a collective of Asian American social justice artists) that centers art and culture as a way to support community-led campaigns around issues of gentrification and displacement. In her talk, Yu described CAB’s collaborations with CAAV and the Chinatown Tenants Union, which included collecting oral histories, story circles, resident-led walks, photography, audio recordings, community counter mapping, and video documentation as well as large scale public projections, augmented reality, 3-D storytelling, geo-located audio walks, and interactive mapping. In all her projects, Yu describes her commitment to engaging community members in ‘placekeeping’ (rather than place making) and the power of technologies that support collective participation and amplification of voices impacted by the predatory practices of corporate investment and mass displacement in New York City.
Click here for a list of New Media Resources that include online resources, tools, and software to use in your practice.
Leave a Reply