We Make the World

Creative practices you can use to build a life and community that fulfills you, by award-winning artist and activist Patrisse Cullors.

The world is asking us to imagine new ways of being. Let's build them. Let's paint them. Let's make them real—not as solitary visionaries but as communities in concert, each voice distinct yet harmonizing with the whole.

How do we imagine our way toward a better world? Aesthetics is one of the most powerful technologies we have for making and remaking meaning, from the clothes we wear to the architecture that surrounds us and the culture the shapes society, aesthetics can be our path to both power and peace. Here artist/activist Patrisse Cullors unlocks the secrets to a nourishing creative life, embracing our unique aesthetic contributions individually and in community, and provides clear instructions to apply each artistic approach our own lives.

Be inspired to create your own work by engaging deeply with the real-world applications of aesthetic activism revealed by the work and process of contemporary activist-artists, such as:
Torkwase DysonNoé OlivasFaith WildingAnna Deavere Smith
The result has transformative power. Readers will jump straight into some exercises and bookmark others for later—all will be creatively inspired. And much as we return to The Artist’s Way when life lures us away from hands-on engagement with art in our lives, we will keep coming back to We Make The World.