The writer Joan Didion famously said, 'we tell ourselves stories in order to live." In this course, we will explore her idea by reading artists' stories in their own words as we seek to view art and design as a means of storytelling. We will look to the words of Ai Weiwei, Marina Abromavic, Yayoi Kusama and other BIPOC artists and writers to examine how intersecting struggles of dislocation, censorship, trauma, gender, and race produce work and affect the artist as maker. As we examine art as a method of storytelling, students will begin to meaningfully revisit their own narratives. As a class we will consider: How can we communicate with culture past and present? How do we tell our own stories and others with care? Can we define the spirit of our cultural moment, the zeitgeist, and our role within it to identify, communicate, embody, or resist? The work you produce in our course will be both critical and creative. Through readings, discussions, and of course storytelling, we will strive to contextualize the act of making as a means for students' own self-reflection and practice.