Art School: They Told Me to ‘Explore Form’ So I Built a God Out of IKEA Parts for My Thesis Project

It started with a prompt. Simple, almost innocent: “Explore form.”  Two words. Open-ended. Dangerous. The kind of art school assignment that seems harmless until you find yourself spiraling at 3 AM, surrounded by half-assembled particle board and whispering to an Allen wrench like it’s a priest.

By the end of the semester, I had built a god. Out of IKEA furniture. And I stood before the critique panel, trembling, beside a nine-foot humanoid altar made entirely of Hemnes shelving units, Björksnäs legs, and a single, flickering Dioder light strip pulsing like an electronic heart.

Let me explain.

At first, I considered making a sculpture in clay. You know—“form.” Safe. Expected. Professors nodding solemnly while scribbling cryptic words like “gestural” or “loaded” on their feedback sheets. But then I went to IKEA with a friend who needed a bath mat, and something unholy snapped in my brain. The way the showroom mannequins stared through me. The sterile calm of it all. The maddening uniformity. I started sketching that night.

The idea was simple: what if consumerist flat-pack culture was religion? What if we were all unknowingly worshipping at the altar of self-assembly? And what would that god look like?

I began collecting discarded IKEA parts from Craigslist, curbs, and my ex’s storage unit (he still doesn’t know). My studio turned into a sacrilegious warehouse of mismatched Allen keys and MDF limbs. Every bolt was a revelation. Every cam lock a sacred sigil. I was no longer an artist. I was a prophet.

The final piece was titled: “KÄRLIGHET: The Modular Deity.” It stood taller than me, with multiple articulated arms—some ending in coat hooks, others in light bulbs or drawers that opened to nothing. Its torso was a dresser turned inside out. Its face? A warped mirror with handwritten prayers etched into it, in languages I made up. Worshipers (i.e., my classmates) were encouraged to leave offerings: broken hex keys, IKEA pencils, fragments of their failed projects.

Crit day came. I wore all white. The panel was silent for 11 full minutes. One professor cried. Another simply muttered, “This is either genius or a breakdown.” I got an A–.

Some called it a satire. Others, a “post-humanist interrogation of domesticity.” I just wanted to see if I could summon something divine from the most banal pieces of our lives—the things we all touch, curse at, and live beside without noticing. IKEA is everywhere. Why not give it a face?

Now, six months post-graduation, the god lives in my mom’s garage. She uses it to hang coats.

But sometimes I go back. Light a candle. Tighten a loose bolt. Whisper thanks.

Because they told me to explore form.
And I found God in a LACK side table.

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Next up: “Performance Art or Psychotic Break? I Lived Inside a Giant Sock for 12 Days and No One Stopped Me.”