The Bestiary Project - A book of imaginary beings (Exhibition)

Since monsters and other fantastic imaginary creatures are such an omnipresent part of Halloween,  this year we decided to celebrate Halloween by finding out more about beasts, monsters, demons and  mythical creatures and compiling our research  into a modern bestiary. The students created a poster for each creature and the result was an exhibition: THE BESTIARY PROJECT.

Traditionally, a bestiary is a collection of short descriptions about all sorts of animals, real and imaginary.  Bestiaries appeared in the twelfth century, as a compilation of many earlier sources, principally the greek Physiologus, dated  400 a.D. 

In 1967, the argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges compiled  “El libro de los seres imaginários”, his modern version of a bestiary,  containing descriptions of 120 mythical beasts and creatures from folklore and literature.  His book of imaginary beings was the inspiration for this project .

There is a whole iconic imaginary attached to Halloween, all revolving around the themes of death, evil and mythical monsters. The modern imagery comes from many sources including Christian eschatology, national customs and folk mythology, works of gothic and horror literature and classic horror films.  This includes all sorts of Halloween themed monsters and creatures, from cackling hags to moaning zombies, from wraiths to vampires, from ogres to werewolves, from literary and film characters like Frankenstein to mythical folk monsters like dragons and golems.