Youmee Lee, a Korean American animator and storyteller, explores materials and weaves narratives into her art. She created a 2D animated film, Rite of Identity, about a deaf child’s coming-of-age story and struggles with the soundscape, based on deaf people’s childhood stories. She created a Google Doodle of Dorothy “Dot” Miles, a deaf sign language poet, last August. Her goal is to create picture books, graphic novels, and animated poetry incorporating ASL poetry and sign play.
She earned an MFA in Film and Animation from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MA in Deaf Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a certified Teacher of the Deaf in New York.