Abstract
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.