The participant described how a friend of hers is superb at making her laugh when she’s going through a rough time, which makes a significant difference in her resilience. Her image expressed her wish for more laughter in her life.

I commented that all these ‘hahahas’ were like different types of laughter: the belly laugh, the shy, tentative laugh, the ironic, the mean, the warmhearted, the loud and the loving. Someone else in the group commented on how the lines resembled the rhythm of a heart monitor, like a laughter pulse. Another person commented on how the laughter lines move horizontally across the page and yet there are also vertical lines that look like tears. The paper itself looks wrinkled, as if it was flooded with tears. We made a connection between how we may laugh to overcome, as well as deny, our internal tears of grief, just as we may have tears of rage, and yet we also have those catalytic tears of laughter – this being the laughter of liberation.

Comedy and art have a long association. Just as art can bring people to a better place, so can comedy. In the Tate Museum’s podcast, The Art of Comedy, Charlie George states the origins of comedy as an art form can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece. Humour and irony were consistently used by comic poets and playwrights to influence political opinions. There is a picture by Hogarth called Caricatures and Characters. Many others, including DaVinci, DuChamp, Magritte, Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, Grayson Perry et al all use humour in their work to comment on social and political issues. Laughter unites others as well as helping to recalibrate one’s self.

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