Creating Cross-Cultural Exhibits in Schools

Theory and practice of the Cross-Cultural Arts Exhibit project initiated by the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois) is described in this paper. The project was developed based on the concept of post-museum. Instead of transmitting values and knowledge, communication in the post-museum stresses the construction of meaning by active individual agents and celebrates diversity of viewpoints. The dialogical model of teaching diverse visual cultures, which is based on the pragmatic art theory of John Dewey and the hermeneutic art theory of Hans-Georg Gadamer, has been put in practice for cross-cultural classroom activities. Key features of the project are discussed in the paper, with concrete classroom examples provided. Includes three notes. Contains 18 references. (Author/BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Creating Cross-Cultural Exhibits 1 Creating Cross-Cultural Exhibits in Schools Kazuyo Nakamura University of Tsukuba, Japan Virginia Erickson University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Viktoria Ford Barkstall Elementary School, USA Author Note The paper was presented at InSEA 31' World Congress. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to the author at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, College of Education 360, Educational Policy Studies, 1310 S. 6th St. Champaign, IL 61820. Email: [email protected] PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY