Comedy in Crises provides a novel contribution to an emerging comedy studies field, offering a fresh approach and understanding toward both the motivation and reception of humour in diverse contemporary art contexts. Drawing together research by artists, theorists, curators, and historians from around the world (from Palestine, to Greece, Brazil, and Indigenous Australia), it provides new insight into how humour is weaponised in contemporary art – focusing on its role in negotiating complex cultural identities, the expectations of art markets, the impact of historical legacies, as well as its role in bolstering cultural resilience. In so doing, this book explores a vital, yet under-explored, aspect of contemporary art. Over the last decade, we have witnessed an overwhelming emphasis on experiences of precarity and emergency in contemporary art discourse, reflecting a popular view that the decade following the outbreak of the global financial crisis has been marked by an intersection of constant crises (refugee crisis, sovereign debt crisis, environmental disaster, COVID). Comedy in Crises offers innovative analysis of the relationship between this context and the growing use of humour by artists from around the world, making clear the vital role of laughter in mediating the collective trauma that takes shape today in a period of protracted crisis.

How do cultural institutions and art practices respond to long-standing states of national and international emergency? It is with these questions in mind that Khalil Rabah's artistic practice investigates the future of visual arts production under such conditions. Exploring the relationships between historically sanctioned and experimental exhibition settings, fictional and documentative narratives, and the histories of displacement, his methods not only propose but produce speculative institutions. As the artist's first major monograph, Falling Forward / Works (1997-2025) presents a comprehensive selection of exhibition materials, previously unseen archival documents, and detailed background notes on how Rabah's methods relate to broader themes in his work. The volume also introduces new critical writing from curators, authors, and researchers on the interrelated subjects of anticipatory aesthetics, subterfuge and fugitive acts, mimicry and performativity, knowledge production, archival technologies and, crucially, the politics of humor.

Though the current political situation in Palestine is more serious than ever, contemporary Palestinian art and film is becoming, paradoxically, increasingly funny.In Laughter in Occupied Palestine, Chrisoula Lionis analyses both the impetus behind this shift toward laughter and its consequences, arguing that laughter comes as a response to political uncertainty and the decline in nationalist hope. Revealing the crucial role of laughter in responding to the failure of the peace process and ongoing occupation, she unearths the potential of humour to facilitate understanding and empathy in a time of division. This is the first book to provide a combined overview of Palestinian art and film, showing the ways in which both art forms have developed in response to critical moments in Palestinian history over the last century. These key moments, Lionis argues, have radically transformed contemporary Palestinian collective identity and in turn Palestinian cultural output. Mapping these critical junctions - beginning with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the Oslo Accords in 1993 - she explores the historical trajectory of Palestinian art and film, and explains how to the failure of the peace process has led to the present proliferation of humour in Palestinian visual culture.

Though the current political situation in Palestine is more serious than ever, contemporary Palestinian art and film is becoming, paradoxically, increasingly funny.In Laughter in Occupied Palestine, Chrisoula Lionis analyses both the impetus behind this shift toward laughter and its consequences, arguing that laughter comes as a response to political uncertainty and the decline in nationalist hope. Revealing the crucial role of laughter in responding to the failure of the peace process and ongoing occupation, she unearths the potential of humour to facilitate understanding and empathy in a time of division. This is the first book to provide a combined overview of Palestinian art and film, showing the ways in which both art forms have developed in response to critical moments in Palestinian history over the last century. These key moments, Lionis argues, have radically transformed contemporary Palestinian collective identity and in turn Palestinian cultural output. Mapping these critical junctions - beginning with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the Oslo Accords in 1993 - she explores the historical trajectory of Palestinian art and film, and explains how to the failure of the peace process has led to the present proliferation of humour in Palestinian visual culture.