Pick a fairy tale, story, poem or song and go through some or all of the prompts below. 

You can use different prompts with different pieces or pick one song, poem, story, or fairytale and go through each of the prompts. 

First, read one time without thinking too much about it, then read a second time while paying attention to your body—feelings, sensations, cognitions, physiological shifts, impulses, and urges – while reading. How is your breath, pulse, posture, muscle tension as you read? Are you distracted? If so, how? What do you notice about your internal body experience as you read?

Read the piece out loud. Notice how sounds, vibrations, tones, energy move through and around you. Stories are alive; pay attention to how this story is alive, is a being. Be curious about these experiences in and around your body, and how they shape cultural reproduction, creating embodied culture over time and space.

Now, read from a different perspective—pick another aspect of yourself or choose another human or other-than-human being and practice reading the story from/through their senses and body. Try to be with the story as they might and notice when you shift back to yourself as the primary perspective. When this happens, reshift to the perspective you are trying to hold. Pay attention to internal and external cues or contexts when this shifting happens and be curious about how those cues or contexts might have triggered your shift in perspective.

Finally, read while tracking/noticing how you are being shaped and moved by the story, how your body is experiencing the story, and how that is shaping your perception, your experience, your feelings, beliefs, and values. Also consider how you are being shaped by the story as culture building: how is the piece building culture in you, your body, your experience? Draw, write, sing, dance, move, dream your noticings.

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Make up a response to the fairy tale, myth, song, poem or story that you read; rework, or play with it in some way.

Write an alternative storyline, or create ways to talk back, such as engaging in a call and response to the culture and world-building you found in the story with your own story, character, themes, plots, backgrounds. What might you include? What characters, voices, dialogue, plot lines, themes, colors, descriptions, textures, and sounds would you zoom in or zoom out on when responding? What perspectives would you take, whose voices or views would you include and exclude at various moments and in the story as a whole? How do you want things to sound, to dance, to move, to breathe? Do you want to write this response, or sing it, draw it, dance it? Is it a ritual or gesture? Play and be curious. Let go of perfecting and see what emerges; notice rather than trying to make the “best” version. 

What values, morals, ethics and/or principles guide you in your life and relationships? How did you learn these? How are they reflected in stories, songs, fairytales, and art? How might they be entangled with, uphold, or collude with white body supremacy and colonialism? How might they refuse or interrupt white body supremacy and colonialism?

White supremacy culture values and prioritizes written language over all other means of expression. Because written forms of expression are lauded and praised as more valuable, many of us are less adept, less fluent in the languages of imagery, symbols, metaphor, and pictures. 

Imagery and metaphor are helpful mediums through which to examine conscious and unconscious biases, assumptions, and beliefs. Image and metaphors can offer ways to play with, interrupt, recognize and acknowledge cultural knowledge that may otherwise be unconscious. Art, imagery, metaphor, and symbols help one experience and sense from different vantages and perspectives. This can help reduce shame and increase awareness of the unconscious, embodied, and subversive influence of these toxic systems. 

As you go through these prompts, practice letting go of perfectionism and criticism, try to be curious about what arises without judgment or shame and see if you can let things emerge without an agenda. 

Below are a few examples of ways we can specifically use visual art to examine our own reactions, beliefs, biases, and yearnings when reading stories or fairy tales. For all of these exercises, the focus is on the process of image formation, making art, seeing what emerges, and noticing what is below the surface, as opposed to making something visually pleasing or realistic. 

As previously mentioned, letting go of perfectionism is essential. Try to be as spontaneous with your imaginings and art materials as you can. You could try experimenting with art media that is messier, more immediate, and cannot be erased, like markers or paint, as opposed to pencils. Notice when judgments or thoughts of  “good” or “bad” start happening and gently let those judgments float away. 

• Read a story or fairy tale and after you finish, sit quietly and visualize the story back to yourself. See if you can ‘play’ the story over again in your mind’s eye, watching it happen this time instead of reading the words. What do you notice? How do characters appear in your mind, and what do you observe about how you imagined the characters’ features, size, where they live, etc? What do the secondary characters look like? What is going on in the background? Draw the part of the story that feels most significant to you, or what you want to remember the most about this experience. 

• After reading a story, pick one character from the story to draw. Choose a character with whom you feel an emotional connection, whether that feeling is inspiration, love, or even repulsion. Pay attention to how you imagined this character in your mind. Think about their vibe and their demeanor. Draw this character quickly and see what comes out.  

Now have a conversation with this character. Ask them anything you’d like to find out more about them. What are their hopes and dreams? What do they represent and what are their values? Where do they feel stuck? How do they want to grow and change? Write down anything that feels significant. 

Expand and play with the very construction of who is considered a character. Animists, as well as indigenous and other non-colonial cultures believe that “things” including rocks, plants, soil, bodies of water, weather systems, crafted objects, and words are alive and are subjects not objects. 

• Read a story and after you’ve finished, see if you can notice an image that comes up or lingers in your mind. Is it a specific object, place, person, relationship, or dynamic in the story? Does a totally unrelated image present itself? Is it simply a feeling that you’re observing? Try to draw whatever comes up. If it is more of a feeling or vibe that is present, use lines, shapes and colors to express it. What do you perceive? Where else does it take you?

• Read a fairytale or story and see who is brought forward as the hero, or the character who is seen as “good.” Think about this character, then imagine the “opposite.” Whatever comes up, draw it. Can you detect any internalized assumptions and binaries of good and bad? What else do you notice?

• After reading a story or fairytale, specifically wonder about the ending of the story. Then imagine, what happens next? Try to follow the first thought/storyline that comes to mind. Follow the new story all the way to a new ending, if you’d like, or end the story where you seem to get “stuck.” Make artwork in response to this new storyline.

• Stories and fairytales teach lessons and pass down cultural values. What value do you believe is one of the most important ones to hold onto as we imagine a new culture? Maybe this is a part of your culture of origin or one that the world needs at this moment. Use a simple symbol to represent this value and draw it on a small piece of paper or index card. Create as many as you’d like.