Lesson 2:
Using Silence to
Cool Down

"Jolene" is a sculpture made of steel, fiberglass, and concrete.  Daniel Popper, Jolene, 2019, Mo:Dem Festival, Slunj, Croatia. Festival’s website.

Masks and Gardens: Cooling Down When Emotions Heat Up

Daniel Popper's monumental sculpture "The Swamp" (nicknamed "Jolene") perfectly captures how silence works as a cooling technique for intense emotions. This striking artwork shows a face held like a mask, revealing a hollow head filled with growing plants – a powerful visual metaphor for our dual emotional reality.

Notice how the sculpture uses contrasting elements to tell its story. The smooth, structured exterior face represents our calm public presentation, while the vibrant interior plants symbolize our complex emotional landscape. This contrast teaches us that cooling down isn't about eliminating feelings, but containing them thoughtfully. The scale of the sculpture emphasizes the importance of this inner emotional work, showing it's both monumental and necessary.

Created for the MoDem Festival, this contemporary masterpiece combines steel, fiberglass, and concrete to explore themes of identity and emotional authenticity. Popper's work stands at the intersection of art and psychology, echoing Carl Jung's theories about the "persona" – the face we present to others versus our true inner selves.

For middle schoolers navigating complex emotions, this sculpture offers important insights:

• Everyone has both an exterior "mask" and an interior "garden" of feelings

• Silence creates space between our internal emotions and external expressions

• Cooling down techniques help us maintain our composure without denying our feelings

• Emotional regulation is a skill we can develop with practice

As we practice cooling down techniques today, think of your emotions like the plants inside Jolene's head – not something to eliminate, but a living part of you that needs space to grow in healthy ways, contained by your thoughtful exterior.