Creative Engagement in Everyday Life – Learning from Aesthetic Experience

Abstract

In recent years the concept of aesthetics has become broader and more focused on the aesthetic experience resulting from the interaction between the person and the environment. A lot has been written about the way people experience settings that are explicitly designed as sites for aesthetic engagement, such as museums and art galleries, but very little attention has been given to ordinary people and how they make sense of such experiences in their everyday lives. This research study explores the everyday aesthetic experiences that lay people find meaningful in their daily encounters through a phenomenological approach. The findings indicate that everyday aesthetic experiences result from being open to creatively engage, are a blend of serendipitous events and planned encounters and a significant dimension of lived experience.