Moods

Abstract

This body of work invites us into a rich exploration of human moods, approached through the unique lens of practice-led research. Rather than relying solely on traditional research methods such as surveys or interviews, this work foregrounds creative practice itself, whether through art-making, performance, or design, as a fundamental way of knowing. Here, creative activities are not merely outcomes of research but become central to the inquiry, generating insights that might otherwise remain inaccessible when studying something as subtle, complex, and deeply personal as mood.

This investigation is particularly significant within the context of higher education in the post-COVID-19 era, where students have faced unprecedented disruptions to their academic, social, and personal lives. The aftermath of the pandemic has left many university students navigating fluctuating emotional landscapes characterised by anxiety, uncertainty, isolation, grief, social disconnection, academic pressure, and challenges related to identity and belonging. While institutions have largely returned to face-to-face teaching and learning, the affective consequences of the pandemic continue to shape students' experiences, behaviours, relationships, and wellbeing. As such, understanding mood has become increasingly important, not only as a psychological phenomenon but also as a social and embodied condition that influences learning, engagement, and everyday university life.

At the heart of this inquiry is an understanding that moods are not simply mental states that can be described through language alone; they are deeply embodied experiences. They manifest through our physical presence, gestures, movements, and interactions with the environments and people around us. This perspective emerges from embodied cognition, the idea that thinking, feeling, and perceiving are inseparable from the body's sensations and actions. For university students emerging from periods of lockdown, social distancing, and digital learning, the body has become a critical site through which experiences of stress, resilience, loneliness, and reconnection are expressed and understood. Consequently, mood cannot be fully grasped through detached observation alone. To genuinely understand its nature, the researcher must engage with it bodily, creatively, and reflectively.

Complementing this embodied approach is affect theory, which encourages us to move beyond viewing emotions as fixed, individual states. Affect is understood as fluid, relational, and dynamic, moving between people, objects, spaces, and social contexts. In post-pandemic university environments, moods circulate through lecture halls, residences, online spaces, and peer networks, creating collective atmospheres of uncertainty, hope, fatigue, or resilience. These affective currents influence how students experience learning, community, and personal growth. Rather than seeking fixed emotional categories, this work examines how moods emerge, circulate, and transform within these social and institutional contexts.

Ethnomethodology further grounds this exploration by recognising that moods do not exist in isolation but are embedded within the routines and social norms of everyday life. Students continuously negotiate their moods through interactions with lecturers, peers, family members, and institutional systems. By paying close attention to how moods are enacted, interpreted, and managed within university communities, the researcher gains insight into the lived realities of students and the social processes through which moods acquire meaning.

The practice-led methodology positions the researcher not only as an observer but also as an active participant and maker. Through creative practice, research moves beyond abstraction into the realm of lived and felt experience. This approach acknowledges that understanding often emerges through the very act of creating, whether through the stroke of a brush, a performative gesture, a digital artwork, or the construction of an object. Such creative processes become especially valuable when exploring post-COVID student experiences, where many emotions and moods remain difficult to articulate verbally. Through making, reflecting, and revisiting experience, new forms of knowledge emerge that illuminate the complexities of contemporary student life.

The final research outcomes therefore encompass both the creative artefacts and the critical reflections that accompany them. Together, they provide a layered understanding of human mood that is at once intellectual, emotional, and visceral. Such an approach offers a meaningful way of examining how students negotiate the lingering psychological and social effects of the pandemic while adapting to new academic realities.

What makes this work particularly compelling is its challenge to traditional models of emotional research. Conventional approaches often seek to categorise emotions through measurable indicators such as facial expressions, behavioural patterns, or physiological responses. Yet the moods experienced by students in the post-pandemic university environment resist such simplification. They are often ambiguous, shifting rapidly in response to changing social, academic, economic, and technological circumstances. By embracing practice-led research, this work acknowledges and honours that complexity, capturing the nuanced ways in which moods are lived, embodied, negotiated, and expressed.

Ultimately, this body of work enriches our understanding of human moods by weaving together theory and practice, intellect and embodiment, individual experience and social context. It demonstrates that in order to understand mood authentically, particularly within the post-COVID university landscape, researchers must enter into the experience creatively and bodily, allowing the research process itself to become a form of knowing. In doing so, the work offers a powerful framework for understanding the dynamic affective realities of contemporary students and highlights the critical role of creative practice in making visible the emotional dimensions of human life that often remain unseen.