"Art without heart… Incredibly moving, insightful and wise… This is my drawing, I'm Jake and I'm seven… I know what comments means in Welsh…"

These aren't "normal" response to an art exhibition. But then, Artes Mundi isn't a "normal" art exhibition. And the compliments and criticism pasted on the walls at the end of the exhibition, by children and adults, devotees and naysayers, are thus completely appropriate.

Emanating from Wales, Artes Mundi is an international art prize now in its second year. Its £40,000 prize money and ambitiously global Latin name (meaning "Arts of the World") should combine to make it feel distant and awe-inspiring, as well as impossibly international and monumental. The eight artists in the running for the prize - which will be awarded on March 31 - are Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Thomas Demand, Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg, Leandro Ehrlich, Subodh Gupta, Sue Williams and Wu Chi-Tsung. It should be Art, with a capital A.

But from the first moment you step into Leandro Ehrlich's Bower, through an old-style, black park gate, you feel as though you are entering something rather different. His stunning, dappled light projections on the floor instantly make you feel part of the artwork, and as though you have been instantly removed from the context of an art gallery. His work evokes freedom and simplicity rather than the claustrophobic polysemic atmosphere of many art galleries.

In fact, a sort of rebellion against the concept of "Art" as something unreachably grand seems to be at the centre of most of the work in Artes Mundi 2; a framework around which to hang the exhibition which is less reductive than just its internationalism.

As Helen Waters, Curator of the New Art Centre Sculpture Park and Gallery in Salisbury says, "to compare artists by their geographical origins is often to view the most superficial elements of their art". The selectors for the exhibition, Deepak Ananth and Ivo Mesquita, have excelled themselves by choosing artists for the prize whose work constitutes a dialogue between people rather than between nationalities. As Helen explains: "If you ask an artist, I am sure they would say they were an artist before they said they were, for example, a Welsh artist."

Sue Williams, an artist from Wales who is also nominated for the prize, agrees. "Art is an international language and offers cultures from every corner of the world to reveal their own interpretation of life and the human dialogue," she says. Sue's work - large, colourful, multi-layered and textured - is both provocative and playful, and she is proud to exhibit it alongside other international artists. Sue's work is similar to that of one of the other nominees, Subodh Gupta, in the way she takes ordinary things and makes them into art, thus involving the viewer and encouraging them to question the way they look at the world. "The drawings selected for dirty linen on line are the immediate interpretations of the everyday," says Sue. "I have no desire for a particular response to my work - all I want is the viewer to respond honestly."

The artists in Artes Mundi 2 seem reluctant to place themselves as palimpsests for society, preferring instead to involve their viewers in their art to make truly international, universal experiences. Nominee Thomas Demand has admitted that he is interested in how we absorb information and how we create our own realities. His exploration of this in the Artes Mundi 2 exhibition is another deconstruction of the artist and art as something unreachable and separate from that which is human and quotidian.

Wu Chi-Tsung's beautiful work Wire I shows the method of creating art to his audience through a projection on a wire, which shines on the wall evoking a classical Oriental image. As with many of the artists, he explores his own life, experiences and origins within his art, but does so in a way that involves the viewer rather than excludes them.

In fact, much of Artes Mundi 2 is about the viewer feeling involved. Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg's huge video installations encourage something of a conversation between artist, subject and viewer, while Eija-Liisa Ahtila's reflections on the human condition use the layering of sound, music and narrative to enhance the sense of a psychological drama that the viewer is involved in.

In this way it is a democratic show. Rather than being an art event - a "private members' club" as Helen Waters puts it - it embraces the viewer's involvement in the artistic process. Artistic Director Tessa Jackson feels that their "fantastic response from the public" is down to the universality and approachability of the show. She is proud that it dares to be different, "rather than forcing the artists into some international aesthetic just to be valued".

Moreover, by consistently involving the viewer on a basic human level, from the works themselves to the Comment Board at the end of the exhibition, the artists make the world feel smaller by demonstrating the universality of the human condition. That they manage to do so in such diverse, rich ways is what makes the exhibition such an enjoyably contradictory experience. In this way, it is difficult to disagree with Helen Waters when she says that "Artes Mundi is international art at its best".

The National Museum of Wales' stated motto is "to bring the world to Wales, and Wales to the world". Artes Mundi 2 brings the world to Wales' doorstep; and, if anything, should make us all realise that not only the art world, but the world itself, is a lot smaller, more beautiful and more approachable than we had realised.