Cultural Sustainability: Identities and Cultural Diversity Croatian and Australian fairy tales interpreted through literary and visual art by preschool children

Abstract The author presents her research entitled Croatian and Australian fairy tales interpreted through literary and visual art by preschool children. This project was developed through the collaboration of 40 children of preschool age in two faraway countries: Croatia and Australia. The goal was to show that children's creativity could be motivated by learning about cultural diversities, authentic symbols contained in legends and stories, and by exchanging information about diverse cultures. The research was done on how children from diverse cultures and continents process various symbols, pictures of flora and fauna, characters and stories they had never heard of before. By motivating their literary and visual interpretation, they gained awareness of their own cultural identity. With this research we prove that it is possible to build a constructive dialogue between two diverse cultural groups. This kind of intercultural approach to a project, followed by written messages and letters, had an emotional impact on these two groups. After a while the two groups of children showed their creativity and knowledge through their own visions full of originality and imagination. A 10-minute film was made about the impact of Aboriginal/Australian cultural identity on the creative process of Croatian children. In this process, the children's creativity brought closer together the two diverse cultures and enriched each other.