Yiru Chen (陳伊如)
she/her/她/伊
Born in Shanghai, China
Lives & works in New York, NY
Yiru Chen is a filmmaker, educator, and accessibility advocate whose work connects Deaf education, community-rooted arts, and disability justice. Working across U.S. and Chinese contexts, Chen approaches access as a form of authorship. Her interdisciplinary practices honor the experiences of Deaf, disabled, queer, and diasporic communities.
Early in her career, Chen interned with documentary filmmaker Stephanie Black. Her own award-winning films have since screened internationally. Handscape (夏青), her thesis short, was presented at more than 25 film festivals worldwide, including the Toronto Reel Asian Festival, and received the Grand Jury Prize at the Shanghai Queer International Film Festival. Her feature-length documentary debut, No Rule Is Our Rule (沒有規則是我們的規則), co-directed and edited with Eiko Otake (尾竹永子) and Wen Hui (文慧), premiered at Asia Society New York in 2023. In 2025, she directed the Case Study Film for DEPT® and NVIDIA’s AI platform SIGNS, exploring how emerging AI technology can expand or limit sign language access and inclusive design.
Chen’s approach to accessible storytelling extends from film to performance arts. She has assisted the artistic director at HERE Arts Center and collaborated with New York Deaf Theater and late-deafened composer Jay Alan Zimmerman on accessibility initiatives in theater and music. In summer 2026, she created and produced 手心·小王子 (The Little Prince in Our Hands), a Chinese Sign Language children’s theater adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince, developed through a week-long workshop with Deaf, CODA, and hearing children in Guangzhou, China.
Chen graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BA in Film & TV production. She earned an MA in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She currently teaches at St. Francis de Sales School for the Deaf in Brooklyn, where her work with Deaf, DeafBlind, and DeafDisabled students informs her artmaking and pedagogy. She serves as Board Secretary of the Seattle-based non-profit organization Deaf Spotlight, and co-hosts 残言片语(Disabled Talks), a Chinese-language podcast that examines mainstream events through a disability lens. The thread throughout her career is cultivating the tools, spaces, and relationships that enable communities to create, lead, and shape their own narratives.
陳伊如是一位電影創作者、教育工作者及無障礙倡議者。她的工作連結聾人教育、扎根社群的藝術實踐與身心障礙正義。往返於美國與中國的不同語境，她將無障礙視為創作主體性的一部分；她的跨領域實踐珍視聾人、身心障礙者、酷兒及離散社群的經驗。
陳伊如早年曾在紀錄片導演 Stephanie Black 身邊實習。此後，她自己的電影也陸續在國際影展放映。她的畢業短片 《夏青》（Handscape） 曾入選全球超過 25 個電影節，包括 Toronto Reel Asian Festival，並榮獲上海國際酷兒電影節評審團大獎。她的首部長篇紀錄片 《沒有規則是我們的規則》（No Rule Is Our Rule），與舞蹈家尾竹永子（Eiko Otake）及文慧共同執導、剪輯，於 2023 年在紐約亞洲協會首映。2025 年，她為 DEPT® 與 NVIDIA 的人工智慧平台 SIGNS 執導案例研究影片，探討新興人工智慧技術如何拓展或限制手語與共融設計。
陳伊如的無障礙敘事在實踐上也從電影延伸至表演藝術。她曾在 HERE 藝術中心擔任藝術總監助理，並與 New York Deaf Theater 及後天聽障的作曲家 Jay Alan Zimmerman 合作，推動劇場與音樂領域的無障礙倡議。2026 年夏天，她製作了中國手語兒童劇 《手心·小王子》。該劇改編自安東尼·德·聖修伯里的《小王子》（Le Petit Prince），並透過在中國廣州舉辦、為期一週的工作坊，與聾人、聾人子女（CODA）及聽人兒童共同創想。
陳伊如畢業於紐約大學帝勢藝術學院，主修電影與電視製作，並於哥倫比亞大學師範學院取得聾人與重聽者教育碩士學位。她目前任教於布魯克林的聖方濟聾人學校；與聾人、聾盲及兼具其他障礙的聾人學生共事的經驗，也持續影響她的藝術創作與教學實踐。她擔任西雅圖非營利組織 Deaf Spotlight 的董事會秘書，並共同主持中文播客《殘言片語》（Disabled Talks），從障礙視角探討主流問題。貫穿她所有實踐的，是建立工具、空間與關係，讓不同社群得以自主創作、發揮主導權，並講述自己的故事。