Author(s)

Yanting Zhang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ University College London, 7 Sidings St, London E20 2AE, UK

Corresponding Author

Yanting Zhang

ABSTRACT

This essay explores the profound role of art in transforming everyday experience. It considers how art unsettles habitual modes of perception and disrupts routine, creating opportunities for renewal and expanded consciousness. By examining dimensions of aesthetic experience, such as the interaction of mind and body, the emotional resonance of artistic encounters, and the ongoing process of meaning-making, the essay highlights how art fosters attentiveness, empathy, and openness toward ambiguity and complexity. Through art, individuals and communities can sharpen their self-reflection, engage their imagination, and develop deeper connections with one another. Ultimately, the essay argues that art is not just an object of contemplation, but an active and living event that catalyzes self-discovery, critical dialogue, and the continual reconfiguration of the ordinary.

KEYWORDS

Aesthetic Experience; Perception; Transformation; Everyday Life; Art and Self; Artistic Agency; Social Connection; Reconfiguration of the Ordinary

CITE THIS PAPER

Yanting Zhang. Art and the Reconfiguration of the Ordinary: A Critical Exploration of Aesthetic Transformation. Journal of Sociology and Ethnology (2026). Vol. 8, No.2, 16-21. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/jsoce.2026.080203.

REFERENCES

[1] Becker, C. (2002). Surpassing the spectacle: Global transformations and the changing politics of art. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
[2] Berleant, A. (2016). Chapter 6, "Aesthetic Embodiment" in Re-thinking Aesthetics: Rogue Essays on Aesthetic and the Arts, pp. 83-90. London & New York: Routledge.
[3] DeBolla, P. (2001). Art Matters. Chapter 2: Serenity: Barnett Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimis, pp. 23-55. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[4] Greene, M. (2001). Notes on Aesthetic Education, in Variations on a Blue Guitar: The Lincoln Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetic Education, pp. 7-43. New York: Teachers College Press.
[5] Jackson, P. W. (1998). John Dewey and the lessons of art. Yale University Press.
[6] Noë, A. (2012). Varieties of Presence: Conscious Reference, pp. 15-29. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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