Didn’t I Used to Have a Sense of Humor? 

Hannah Niswonger

This exhibition brings together four installations: Octopus’s Garden; Cloud—Bird—Place; Poisonous & Carnivorous Dinnerware; and Conversations with My Father’s Paintings. Each is an exploration of complexities of life ranging from personal to global in scale. I use humor to process difficult issues: climate change, loss of habitat, threats to bodily autonomy, the death of my parents. 

“Didn’t I used to have a sense of humor?” These were the last words my mother said to me before she died this April, when she was struggling to retain her identity while losing her battle with age and disease. For me, these words reflect the human talent, and sometimes desperate need, to use humor to cope with tribulation and loss. The works in this exhibition translate humor and grief into social commentary.