Art of the Story: Curator’s Statement

To tell a story is to be human. Our ability to communicate our experiences through spoken words, written text, art and illustration, and film and video defines us in our time and throughout our history. Our stories try to explain, convince and make light of our collective understanding. For children, stories are a way of teaching and learning. They inspire imagination and more communication.

Art of the Story is an exhibition that presents aspects of storytelling. Topics tackled include cultural differences in storytelling, written words and performed stories, and technology’s influence on communication.

When you visit, you’ll experience more than 70 artworks that highlight storytelling, which will encourage you to dream up your own stories that you can write and illustrate. There are activities that are designed to help you layout your story so that it speaks to the reader, listener or viewer, who then is taken on a journey. Another activity encourages you to use imagination to draw your story’s setting; this artwork is then scanned so that it becomes the background on the green screen and provides you a place to act out your story.

Storytelling is important. Whether you are telling your family about your day at school and what you learned, or you are explaining your adventures with your video games or the books you read, your ability to tell a story will help you communicate over your lifetime.

-Jeffory Morris