The Joke’s On Us! participatory art exhibition

The Mill community centre in Walthamstow launched an exciting participatory art exhibition, The Joke’s On Us! on Thursday 11th April as part of the Waltham Forest Borough of Culture 2019. It featured work from the Government Art Collection, and local residents finest jokes…

YOUR jokeS next to famous artworkS

We asked residents and people from anywhere in the world to tell us their best joke in any language, whether that be an old family favourite, a traditional knock-knock or cutting edge humour worthy of a stand-up routine.

Jokes were displayed alongside prestigious artwork from the Government Art Collection in the The Joke’s On Us! show between Thursday 11 April –Saturday 25 May 2019.

We put the Borough of Culture ‘through The Mill’

The Joke’s On Us! was an exciting addition to the Waltham Forest Borough of Culture 2019. The exhibition had been inspired by the artwork Joke Stack created by contemporary British artist Peter Liversidge. Joke Stack is owned by the Government Art Collection, who lent it to The Mill for the duration of The Joke’s On Us! show.

Liversidge is an artist preoccupied with humour. To create Joke Stack he wrote letters to famous comedians asking for their favourite jokes. He then screen-printed and framed twelve replies. We showed these during The Joke’s on Us! exhibition, alongside the same jokes printed and piled in stacks of coloured paper. As well as contributing jokes, visitors could also take home one of the famous jokes printed on the coloured paper, to put on the wall or even make the biggest paper aeroplane ever.

PARTICIPATION

As well as local residents sticking their own jokes up alongside works from the Government Art Collection, as part of the show we ran a joke-telling workshop with local comedians Susan Murray and Maureen Younger. Residents got the chance to sharpen their joke-telling skills with some professionals…

The videographer Laura Martinez also created a fantastic video of Mill regulars telling their best joke, a video piece which played throughout the duration of the show.

The Joke’s On Us! exhibition was curated by SRG Bennett, an artist and policy-maker who is part of The Mill's Art Works team.