Laughing through life?

This exhibition explores the role of humour in UK family life. Laughter is often seen as a defining feature of a ‘happy family.’ Families use humour to create fun, renew relationships, and cope with tough times. However, humour can have unexpected or complicated effects. It is often open to misunderstanding and miscommunication, and can sometimes be unkind. Humour is related to all kinds of emotions, not just joy. It also works differently across a range of family situations - from the challenges of parenting, through the stress of moving home, to dealing with health conditions. 

The exhibition is a collaboration between social researcher Dr Adam Carter and artist Ivana Stefanova. Adam gathered eight anonymised participant stories from his current research project about family humour. He then passed these to Ivana, who created an artwork inspired by each story. Exhibited in their pairs, we hope that the dual lens of written narrative and visual representation provides a compelling insight into the complexities of humour in family life. 

We invite you to reflect on the stories and artworks, considering what humour does in your own family relationships and how laughter is interwoven with so many positive and negative emotions.

Mary and Robert could not quite believe how quickly the ridiculousness of parenting became just their everyday normal life, so soon after the birth of their daughter Una. 

Robert - “You do find yourself thinking – why are we doing these silly things sometimes? I was cleaning the buggy because we’d gone through some swan poo on a walk,  and just suddenly stopping and thinking ‘this is stupid, why am I doing this?’” 

Mary - “I’m on a whole WhatsApp group of mums that at one stage would be full of pictures of nappies and mums asking ‘oh, does this poo look okay?’ Anyone without children who glimpsed that chat, well - it’s no advert for having children”

Robert and Mary were able to keep up a sense of humour about their daily battles with poo – between themselves, and in the home, they enjoyed the absurdity that comes with parenting.

Outside the home, and with different family members, it was a different story. 

As Mary says:
“I took my mum to a baby class the other day and while we’re there Una had a poo explosion. I was just embarrassed. I’d have to walk past the other mums to get to the baby changing thing, so I just had to change her where she was. I mean there ended up being poo on the floor, oh it was just chaos. 
If I’d seen it in a comedy on TV I’d have laughed but for me in that situation, it was just like - no.”

Before dropping her son Terrence off at school in the morning, mum Tina likes to question him about what he did the previous day, and what he thinks he’ll be up to in class. In the hallway of their flat, Terrence is jumping up and down with nervous excitement while Tina asks her questions.

“So what happened at school yesterday? Did you go to school and learn any lessons at all?”

“Yeah we did lessons!”

“Terrence, what’s going on, why you bouncing around like a... like I don’t know what?”

Terrence laughs and keeps bouncing.

“Are you going to have a good day at school today?”

“That’s a maybe, Mum”

“No not maybe, it’s yes! And you know Mummy loves you right?”

“You know I don't. No” Terrence says with a smile. 

“Well, you could say I love you too”, Tina feigns shock.

“I love you too Mum”

“No, you don't.”

“OK well sometimes Mum. Sometimes.” They both laugh.

While Tina rarely gets a straight answer when asking Terrence about his school days, she enjoys the playful back-and-forth, the ‘banter’ – and not just because it creates laughter in the home.

“Terrence can give as good as he gets, which is nice. I need him to be able to handle himself in terms of speaking, it’s a different world for black boys out there. I’ve said to him, if I'm going to tease you, you need to tease me back, but I want him to be tough enough to be able to laugh off things when he needs to. I want my son to protect himself.”
 

Lynn received some bad news – her mum, June, had been diagnosed with cancer and would need surgery quite soon. 

Determined to make the most of the time they had together, Lynn and her sister Bernie quickly organised a weekend trip to the Welsh coast. This was so June could spend 'quality time' with her granddaughters, Lynn's daughters Olivia and Ruby, before beginning her medical treatment. 

Lynn also brought along her dog, Zeus, to add to the fun.

The weekend was filled with games aimed at having a good laugh together. 'Musical statues' in the kitchen was a highlight. Everyone got involved in the dancing, flailing their limbs wildly and pulling really stupid faces when the music stopped. 

Zeus was the most enthusiastic dancer, although he didn't seem to quite understand the 'statue' part of the game.

Everyone burst into giggles when Bernie struck a one-legged pose as a statue, but toppled to the side like a tree being felled.

Lynn's memories of the weekend, however, are not quite so laughter-filled.

“It was one of the most stressful weekends of my life. There was just so much expectation to make it fun – it was forced fun, and we tried to fit in loads of activities in a short amount of time and…I think we were just sad and not saying anything about that. I do wonder if we'd have talked about that more and just stopped trying to have a laugh all the time, it might have been better. I don't know.”

Amy and Andrew, who had recently moved into a new home, have put baby Alfie to bed and settle on the sofa to watch a program that they 'love-to-hate': 'Made in Chelsea'. 

They enjoy making fun of the ludicrously rich people, and laughing at the meaningless dramas they get themselves involved in. Amy and Andrew are from Yorkshire, and particularly enjoy trying to copy the posh West London accents.

As the show goes on, their attention begins to drift back and forth from the television to their phones. Amy scrolls through Instagram commenting on other people's kitchens and speculating about the costs. 

This leads to a conversation with Andrew about needing a new kettle – their old one had not survived the move. They start searching, again on their phones:
“I reckon I'll find one at a good price at John Lewis”

Amy laughs. “Dream on!”

They slowly become increasingly exasperated at the price of a half-decent looking kettle, their initial fun turning into stress. Conversation turns to the growing costs of settling into their new home.

“We need an electrician, we need a new bathroom, we need someone to fix the fire. It's just always big money we're having to fork out,” Amy says.

“I just think we need to be really careful, we're not splashing the money unnecessarily,” Andrew responds.

Joking about the rich people on the TV has now stopped. They turn it off, and hug.

Allen keys were a big part of Jenni and Malcolm's house move. They seemed to always need one at hand – of course they did, all of their furniture was put together with an Allen key. If they were going to move it all from one side of the country to the other, they needed Allen keys. Well at least one Allen key.

And yet they could never find one. It became a bit of a running joke throughout the move - although it really tested Malcolm's sense of humour sometimes.

"Once I'd found one, I could laugh about it so yes I think it was just ridiculous that we had a house full of these things and they just disappeared all the time. But when I'm scrabbling around I can feel myself going red, I hate it. Jenni would be joking, and I'm looking and nope, I can't laugh, I'm so annoyed."

They both think it was the time pressures that were getting them down, and looking for Allen keys felt like a waste of time when it was in short supply.

That said, Malcolm always had time for a laugh and a joke if he saw Jenni struggling to use an Allen key.

"I found that irritating. I'm trying my best to help out so we can get on with it and he's laughing that I'm using the wrong end at the wrong time."

Malcolm looks sheepish.

"No comment."

Shih-Chun and Kong-Sang used to run a restaurant in Brighton. Ever since they had got together, they often talked about how much they loved food and wanted to make it into a profitable venture.

However, the pandemic and the cost of living crisis made running the business harder and harder, until eventually they were forced to close their establishment.

Since then, picking up work and keeping a roof over their heads has been difficult, but the couple get through it together, and even think the tough times have deepened their relationship.

Shih-Chun's father, Li-Fu, is not as supportive. He doesn't visit often, but when he does, he can't seem to stop insulting the couple for what he calls their 'failure' to run the business correctly. As Shih-Chun says:

"When I was growing up I really thought he would hate me for being gay. But that has never been a problem, he just accepted it, over. With the business, oh my God he is really harsh. So so harsh. Whatever we try to do or talk about or explain he just makes comments about us being silly with money and not trying hard enough…he's so harsh I can't tell if he is joking sometimes, but no he's just mean."

The couple spend days after Li-Fu's visits making exaggerated impressions of his anger to make each other laugh.

"We'll be watching TV and he (Kong-Sang) will suddenly go 'why are you watching this?! This is a waste of time, back to work!' It’s a very good impression!"

Saima has been struggling with her diabetes. 

"I joke that my tummy is a medicine cabinet. The doctor said ‘we need to give you a new medicine because it's not controlling the sugar.’ So whenever I start the new medicine, it affects my body a lot. Last time it made me so sick. I was taking eighteen pills a day. Now it is nine. 

We can laugh about it. I forget my medicine sometimes or take it on an empty stomach and then remember I need it with food, so I just start eating to fill up my stomach. 

My son thinks I am silly, that the medicine is already melted, my daughter she is always laughing because I am not eating the best things maybe! But I don't want to feel sick!

I don't like to show when I am ill. My mum, she is in Bangladesh, and she calls every day. She will ask 'why is your voice like that? I think you are not feeling well,' and I will lie to her because if she knows, she will be worried. 

I will laugh and tell her I've been sleeping and tell her funny stories about the children being messy or lazy, she laughs at that. 

But sometimes I can't hide. Too much sick, no space for fun, to be honest."

Anna and Ross have an ongoing battle with their 6 year-old daughter, Sophie. Anna and Ross want to encourage Sophie to get herself ready to go out – but she takes her sweet time doing it. Particularly when it comes to finding and putting on her socks.

"So instead of looking for your socks, you've decided to do a dance instead. All we want is for Soph's socks to appear upon her feet. Oh yes, yes please." Ross is annoyed but is trying hard to keep his voice on the friendly and funny side.

"Soph. I need you to get your socks and then put one on your left and then the other one, that will go on your right foot." 

Ross' gentle mockery as much for keeping himself entertained as it is to encourage Sophie to find her socks. 

He starts to chant.

"Where are your socks? Where are your sooooocks? Sophie, oh Sophie, where are your socks?" Sophie protests that she doesn't know where to find her socks. Anna points out a pair.

"There's some! By Teddy. Can we put them on please? If you put them on you'll get a massive round of applause!"

Ross chimes in – his humour wearing thinner.

"And if you don't, there's a space in prison for you, I'll ring them up and you can go to prison in your bare feet. You decide – put your socks on."

Anna sighs, before forcing a smile and again pointing out the socks in Teddy's possession.