Enough Bad Jokes: Collective Joy as an Act of Resistance
This workshop explores art as a social practice and tool for micro-resistance. We will look at how jokes, absurdity, and collective imagination can generate clarity and connection, even in oppressive or overwhelming contexts.
In times of social tension, polarization, and global precarity, joy itself can become a radical gesture. "Enough Bad Jokes: Collective Joy as an Act of Resistance" is a transdisciplinary workshop exploring humor, collective laughter, irritations, and play as artistic and political strategies.
To paraphrase author Fatima Ouassak, could this already be enough? As "politics is the possibility of coming together and having the space to do so." (Fatima Ouassak, Piratenökologie, 2024)
Through readings, discussions, performative exercises, and small interventions in public space, we will question what it means to say "enough" — enough fear, enough silence, enough separation — and how humor can become a language of togetherness, defiance, and healing.
Building upon the spirit of our 2025 course "No Utopia: Artivism and Collective Action Today", this workshop continues our exploration of art as a social practice and tool for micro-resistance. We will look at how jokes, absurdity, and collective imagination can generate clarity and connection, even in oppressive or overwhelming contexts.
Participants will engage in small group experiments and create performative works or gestures that embody "enoughness" — not through retreat, but through joyful resistance, as any act of joy takes away space from oppression. Our sessions will include movement-based warm-ups and dialogue circles, we would like to include short reading sessions as well as continue with theoretical inputs and field visits to Berlin-based activist and artistic initiatives that use humor, play, or irony as a method of critique and transformation.
Dr. Isil Egrikavuk is a Turkish-born international artist and academic based in Berlin, Germany. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a Ph.D. in Communication from Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Egrikavuk lives in Berlin and Istanbul has worked as a faculty member at Berlin University of Arts (UdK) since 2017. Egrikavuk is the co-winner of Turkey’s first contemporary art prize, Full Art Prize in 2012. She is the founder of the other garden, a collaborative artistic research space that focuses on issues around ecology, diversity, inclusivity and radical care within the UdK. Egrikavuk has participated in numerous international exhibitions, residencies, and her work has been published in both local and international journals. Recent exhibitions and venues include, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, Berlin (2023), La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2022), Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography (2022), Chicago Architecture Biennial (2021), Die Buehne, Berlin (2019), Art Souterrain, Montreal (2019), Pluto’s Kitchen, Block Universe, London (2017), Every Kind of Myth is Written With Care, Propaganda in 21st Century, Lenbachhaus Museum, Munich (2017), Art of Disagreement, Salt I?stanbul & Ankara (2016-2015), 11th Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah (2013), 11th Istanbul Biennial (2009), Endgame, South Korea (2009).
Website: www.isilegrikavuk.work
Silvia Gioberti studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano and the Berlin University of the Arts. She is co-founder of the artist collective Guerilla Architects, together with Anja Fritz, Nike Kraft, Shahrzad Rahmani, and Benedikt Stoll. She works as a freelance art producer. This occupation has strongly influenced her view regarding the different interpretations and values of the production of art (and space). Questioning socially established paradigms and their new interpretation through design and unconventional use of (public) space is the focus of her collective work. Since 2022, she has been an associated researcher at the Faculty of Architecture, Chair of Building Planning and Design at the University of the Arts Berlin.
Website: www.guerillaarchitects.de
Run period:
03.08.2026 – 07.08.2026
Course time:
10.00 am – 5.00 pm
Application Deadline:
05.07.2026
Course fee:
EUR 660
Min. number of participants:
13
Max. number of participants:
15
For further information please contact:
summer-courses[at]udk-berlin.de
