BornHumor, the role of comedy in tumultuous times
A series of conferences in the Born Centre Cultural up until the 19th of December examines the relationship between humour and some of the more brutal conflicts in history
Despite the adverse socio-political situations that mankind has suffered throughout history, comedy has always been an alternative way of facing up to, or surviving, these tumultuous occasions. During the siege of 1714, for example, the people of Barcelona already had a battery of songs which satirized the complicated future facing them if, as indeed happened, the city and the country fell under the rule of Philippe V.
In our more recent history, and on an international level, comic practices have been maintained in other conflicts such as the current situation in Syria, the Pinochet and Franco dictatorships and terrorism in the Basque Country. Based around these four particular conflicts, the Born Centre Cultural presents BornHumor, a series of chats coordinated by Manel Lucas, from the radio programme Minoria Absoluta, in which comedians from the respective locations provide first-person explications of the relationship between horror and humour.
The series began two weeks ago with a conference dealing with comedy within the context of the Syrian conflict and continues on the 21st of November (the day after 20-N) with a chat given by comic artist Forges relating to humour and censorship during the Franco dictatorship. The 12th of December sees the turn of Chilean comic Sergio Marras, imprisoned in 1987 for satirizing Augusto Pinochet. Finally, on the 19th of December, the programme will be dedicated to Basque terrorism with a conference by Javier García de Vicuna, director of Basque television programme Vaya Semanita (What a week!), a pioneer in the humourist treatment of this socio-political conflict.