School of Fine Art Sculpture & Environmental Art
Emilia Evans-Munton
Working between London and Glasgow, Emilia Evans-Munton is a visual artist and curator exploring sculpture as a means of reconnecting with one’s inner child. Best known for her whimsical needle-felted sculptures, Emilia’s material-driven practice often encompasses tender themes of longing and nostalgia. Largely influenced by her own childhood, her work speaks both personally and universally in the equally tender and harsh qualities of nostalgia that come to contextualise her sculptures. Her playful approach to sculpture takes form in large scale, often interactive sculptural objects that exist in their own uncanny and otherworldly space. Her works are frequently inspired by her own childhood memories and children’s puppet shows and toys. Emilia works with intention of encouraging the audience to rediscover their own (perhaps repressed) states of childlike fascination and wonder through encouraging play and interaction from all ages with her work.
Remember I’m Still Here (2025)
Corduroy, Oat Straw, Repurposed Scaffolding Board
Outside of the Glasgow School of Art rests a monumental sock monkey appearing to be left behind by a giant, measuring 18 metres.
The piece is an ode to the toys that are left behind, and the painful pang of loosing one’s favourite toy as a child. It lies there in sun, wind, rain and storm; initially pristine, gradually becoming more battered and bruised by the weather, literally having been left behind by the artist, yet discovered by the audience during the duration of its presence at the art school.
As well as appearing to have been left behind by its previous owner, the sculpture also appears to have been dispelled from the building and the degree show itself by existing outside, without shelter and vulnerable to the weather. For the sculpture to exist on such a large scale, to take up so much space outside of the school nods to the feeling of rejection of craft qualities in the art school.
The love for the soft toy, is shown through the disfigurement it attains from play. The more bashed and deflated a soft toy is, the more it has been loved; a beautiful paradox. The interaction from the audience allows the rediscovery of their love for their once favourite toys, all the while showering the sock monkey with a newfound love. The scale of the toy reduces adults to a childlike scale, sparking play and wonder amongst onlookers. Maybe it hasn’t been left behind after all.
My Friend (2025)
Scaffolding Mesh, Balloons
My piece tackles the grapple between a childhood energy struggling within a rigid adult framework. The work brings the feeling of trying to preserve something fleeting that resists preservation – such as innocence, childhood or memory. In these photos I hold on to my friend, as I try to grasp on to my adolescence whilst I myself teeter on the cusp of adulthood.
