Transcultural Convergence? Polish Poets and Artists and the Oriental Verbo-visuality

Abstract

The article concerns different aspects of convergence processes of the traditional Oriental genres in the Polish culture, focusing on haiku, haiga and haibun. It examines artists’ books, visual arts and the artistic websites. The theoretical frame of the research is rooted in the concept of transculturality introduced by Wolfgang Welsch. The author analyses Polish works of art employing different strategies of combining words and images, thereby showing unexpected similarities between cultures and revealing the artistic changes caused by the choice of different media. The investigation proves that the most interesting compositions uncover unexpected common elements between apparently contradictory traditions, the necessary condition is, however, at least the basic knowledge about the Other.