Satire – Mockery – Wit – Irony – or simply making fun? Laughter as an act of defiance or survival? Or perhaps a clever way to avoid confrontation; To Laugh in a Burning House questions the means of laughter in relation to political and social crisis.
‍
Humour can expose absurdities and ridicule authority, but also turn anger into amusement and criticism into entertainment. Whether laughter challenges existing power relations or helps sustain them depends on who laughs, at whom, and under what circumstances. Laughter is contagious and difficult to control. It can bring people together, provoke confrontation or single someone out for ridicule. A joke that challenges authority in one place may reinforce prejudice
in another. The exhibition brings satire and political criticism into contact with images of conflict circulating in the media. It asks what laughter can achieve politically, and whether it changes anything beyond
our ability to endure difficult circumstances.

‍To Laugh in a Burning House also includes a series of artistic interventions in public space, taking place ahead of the exhibition.

Ayan Rezaei
Claire Fontaine