Abstract

This research is a heuristic study that answers the question, "What is the nature of the experience of transfer of cultural meaning, when persons view two and three dimensional visual arts in an intercultural education program?" The design of the study was based on the heuristic research model of Dr. Clark Moustakas. ;Through the qualitative interviewing process with eleven co-researchers and exhaustive self-search, the goal was to arrive at a description of the experience of transfer of cultural meaning in visual arts. African visual arts were the focus in the intercultural program at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. ;The research inquiry followed phases: immersion into the experience from a personal perspective, and immersion into the museum setting of the study to discover the texture of that experience, incubation or indwelling with the data, after interviews with co-researchers, illumination characterized by an emergence of core themes and metaphors through the writing of depictions of the experience and a creative synthesis of the experience. ;Metaphorical themes that emerged are struggle, connection, and accommodation. The experience unfolds as a spontaneous, non-sequential syncretism between the object and the viewer, such that metaphors and symbols provide access to cultural information. Visual arts are shown to be a viable medium for an experience of cultural meaning with arts from a culture different from that of the viewer. This study demonstrates that more than formal and expressive qualities are accessible by looking at the art works. Cultural meaning too is accessible if the viewer is given space to trust his or her perceptual self. ;This research has relevance for design of intercultural education programs to include an immersion of participants into the visual arts of another culture as a way to provide access to cultural information. Co-researchers were able to experience significant meaning with the objects that they selected for a response. This study also reinforces the possibility of transcending culturally relative information to arrive at metaphoric universals in order to connect across cultures