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Sensory Learning in Cultural Institutions: Sensory Experience, Aesthetic Sensibility and Intercultural Learning in Garden Settings

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Many cultural institutions invite visitors to interact somatically with artefacts or displays, in hands-on games and activities, listening to soundtracks, responding to olfactory phenomena. Handling collection objects increasingly supplements, or replaces, floor talk or worksheet approaches. Exploring 'discovery worlds', tropical forests, or Egyptian temples, or assuming the roles of forensic archeologists or curators, learners can see, smell, taste, touch, wear, or hear properties of objects, or enjoy kinetic spatio-temporal experiences in multi-sensory environments. These explorations can embrace learner knowledge, provoking curiosities, igniting discussions, inviting inferential responses. The pleasure of engaging with objects in these ways can be especially intense when learners are investigating aesthetic phenomena. Drawing on extended research and case study analyses of education practices in cultural institutions, this chapter focuses on how visitors experience the sensory worlds of two culturally rich constructs: Japanese-style gardens in Canadian settings. It examines how multisensory and aesthetic experiences can mediate first-hand learning with culturally significant phenomena. It argues that this learning has important implications for enhancing aesthetic and intercultural learning, and for how visitors might value these phenomena. It argues further that “aesthetic engagements constitute special instances of interactive learning” that invigorate learning dispositions (Bell, 2011, p. 42) and enhance rich learning power (Claxton, 2005), planting the seeds of interests that can persist through a lifetime of holistic sensory engagements in museums

Keywords: aesthetic sensibility ; contextual knowledge ; intercultural learning ; Japanese-style gardens ; lieux de memoire ; Nikka Yuko Garden Lethbridge ; Nitobe Memorial Garden University of British Columbia ; sensory learning ; somatic experience ; you - wandering

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Sensory Learning in Cultural Institutions: Sensory Experience, Aesthetic Sensibility and Intercultural Learning in Garden Settings
Intellect , 65 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389166_6
/content/books/9781789389166.c05
/content/books/9781789389166.c05
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References

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  2. Bell, D. (2011). Midnight at the museum: Promise, challenge and practice in museums-based visual arts education. International Journal for the Arts in Society, 5(6), 57–70.
     [Google Scholar]
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  4. Bullen, R. (2012). Art and the life of the East Asian: Some thoughts on teaching East Asian aesthetics. In S. K. Chung (Ed.), Teaching Asian art: Content, context, and pedagogy (pp. 3–10). National Art Education Association.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Charman, H. , & Ross, M. (2006). Contemporary art and the role of interpretation: Reflections from Tate Modern's summer institute for teachers. The International Journal of Art and Design Education, 25(1), 28–41.
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  6. Christou, V. , Hironaka, R. , & Flannagan, J. (2006). Garden of serenity: Nikka Yuko Japanese garden. Lethbridge & District Japanese Garden Society.
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  8. Delacruz, E. (2012). What contemporary Asian American artists teach us about the complicated nature of 21st century Americans’ multi-layered, transcultural, and hybridized identities and art practices. In S. K. Chung (Ed.), Teaching Asian art: Content, context, and pedagogy (pp. 234–240). National Art Education Association.
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  12. Han, C. (2012). The aesthetics of wandering in the Chinese garden. Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 32(4), 297–301.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Heyd, T. (2003). Bashō and the aesthetics of wandering: Recuperating space, recognising place, and following the ways of the universe. Philosophy East and West, 53(3), 291–307.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Kuitert, W. (2002). Themes in the history of Japanese garden art. University of Hawai'i Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Lear, J. (2018). Gettysburg mourning. Critical Inquiry, 45(1), 97–121.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Mahdjoubi, L. , & Akplotsyi, R. (2012). The impact of sensory learning modalities on children's sensitivity to sensory cues in the perception of their school environment. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(3), 208–215.78
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Miller, M. (1988). The garden as significant form. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2(4), 267–287.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Miller, M. (2007). Japanese gardens as texts and contexts. East-West Connections: Review of Asian Studies, 7(1), 95–108.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Miller, M. (2012). Reflecting the moon: Teaching East Asian arts and aesthetics. In S. K. Chung (Ed.), Teaching Asian art: Content, context, and pedagogy (pp. 11–17). National Art Education Association.
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  20. Mostow, J. (2014). Courtly visions: The Ise Stories and the politics of cultural appropriation. Brill.
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  21. Murasaki, S. (1976). Genji monogatari [Tales of Genji] (E. Seidensticker, Trans.). Tuttle Publishing. (Original work written 1080)
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Nikka, Y . (2021a, 29 April). Newsletter. https://www.nikkayuko.com
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  24. Papastergiadis, N. (2017). The sensory museum: Affective experience as the new pedagogic norm. Identities, 24(1), 34–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2016.1260016
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  25. Retz, T. (2015). A moderate hermeneutical approach to empathy in history education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(3), 201–226.
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  26. Shao, J. (2017). Sensory learning: Rediscovering our natural learning skills. Link, 3(1). https://www.herts.ac.uk/link/volume-3,-issue-1/sensory-learning-rediscovering-our-natural-learning-skill
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  28. Smith, M. (2007). Producing sense, consuming sense, making sense: Perils and prospects for sensory history. Journal of Social History, 40(4), 841–858.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Sta Maria, C. (2016). Smell, space and othering. IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies, 1(2), 73–86.
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  30. University of British Columbia. (2021, 5 May) Nitobe Memorial Garden (map and guide). https://botanicalgarden2015.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2016/01/Nitobe-Map_May-2016.pdf
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  32. Wang, S. (2020). Museum as sensory space: A discussion of communication effect of multisenses in Taizhou Museum. Sustainability, 12(7), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12073061
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  33. Wiens, K. , & de Visscher, E. (2019). How do we listen to museums? Curator, 62(3), 277–281. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12318
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  34. Yoon-Ramirez, I. (2021). Walking-sensing as a decolonial art and pedagogical practice. International Journal of Education Through Art, 17(1), 115–133.
     [Google Scholar]

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