Framed by discussion of how humour in contemporary art differs to ‘everyday’ visual forms (memes, graffiti etc.), this talk considers how humour is used as a political strategy by artists from diverse sites of crisis: Greece, Palestine and Indigenous Australia. Analysing the work of artists Khaled Hourani, Richard Bell, and Kostis Stafylakis, it demonstrates how humour in contemporary art contributes to three forms of cultural resilience: ‘authenticity’, ‘enactment’, and ‘placemaking’.

Chrisoula Lionis is a writer and cultural producer based between Athens and Manchester. Working in the area of cultural politics, Lionis holds a PhD in Visual Culture (UNSW Australia, 2013) and is the author of Laughter in Occupied Palestine: Comedy and Identity in Art and Film (I.B. Tauris, 2016). Lionis has published widely including in journals Social Text, Cultural Politics and the Middle East Journal for Culture and Communication, and has held several international teaching and research positions (including the National Institute for Experimental Arts, UNSW Australia in Sydney, and the Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens). Lionis is the Co-director of the pedagogical platform Artists for Artists and is currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester, working on project Laughing in an Emergency: Humour, Cultural Resilience and Contemporary Art. From 2021 she will be Research Fellow on AHRC project Understanding Displacement Aesthetics and Creating Change in the Art Gallery for Refugees, Migrants and Host Communities.

Pre-recorded lecture to be posted on The University of Manchester video portal for viewing before the live q&a on Wednesday, 25 November at 5.15pm

Time: Nov 25, 2020 05:15 PM London

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Research Seminar q&a: Chrisoula Lionis (The University of Manchester)