This course is designed around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) and explores how storytelling and audiovisual media can contribute to peacebuilding and coexistence through dialogue rather than confrontation. In a global context marked by increasing polarization, cultural misunderstanding, and media-driven conflict, the ability to communicate across differences has become an urgent and essential skill.
Drawing inspiration from the visual narrative traditions of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang—a major cultural heritage site along the ancient Silk Road—the course examines how allegorical storytelling, visual communication, and artistic practice have historically facilitated cultural exchange and mutual understanding across diverse civilizations. These narrative traditions are approached strictly as cultural, literary, and visual resources, not as religious instruction, and are used to demonstrate how stories can address conflict through patience, metaphor, and ethical reflection rather than opposition.
Through interdisciplinary case studies in visual art, literature, film, sound, animation, and ethnographic media, students explore how storytelling functions as a dialogical practice that encourages listening, empathy, and coexistence. The course emphasizes collaborative and project-based learning, with mixed groups of local and international students working together to respond creatively to contemporary peace-related challenges.
Each teaching day combines a short lecture with extended workshops, dialogue sessions, and studio practice. From the first day of the course, students maintain a Visual Communication Journal to document observations, ideas, sketches, audiovisual experiments, and reflective thinking as part of a continuous learning process.
By the end of the course, students will produce an original storytelling work using a medium of their choice—such as video, sound, animation, visual narrative, or mixed media—and will be able to articulate the cultural, ethical, and creative considerations behind their work. Students can expect an intensive, hands-on learning experience that integrates cultural heritage, contemporary media practice, and global responsibility.
