Vanda Lakatos

This degree project explores how the creation of ‘mood monsters’ can function as a pedagogical tool in art education. Through a workshop where students visualise emotions as monsters, they are given the opportunity to explore and express their inner experiences through visual means.

The project is based on an understanding of emotions as complex and sometimes difficult to grasp, yet central to learning and human experience. By externalising emotions into visual forms, they can become more tangible and open to reflection.

The practical component consists of an installation featuring a life-sized papier-mâché monster sitting on a bench, inviting visitors to sit beside it. The work creates a space for encountering one’s own emotional landscape and raises questions about how we relate to our feelings, and to each other.

This is a ‘mood monster’ representing joy. Mood monsters are usually invisible, but they are always present around us. They are all unique and have their own characteristics. They come and go, just like our feelings. We need to learn to know them and to live with them. Maybe they are not as frightening as they first might seem?
Feel free to draw your own mood monster!