Shanghai is now facing its fourth week of strict lockdown: this can be defined an upsetting situation. People, often alone, are locked into apartments, often small. Or maybe even worse locked with the partner and the kids all day, all night. This can easily blow up your mind.
Someone shows anger by posting protests (and make Wechat surveillance team crazy to chase all the illegal content), other react differently.
We noticed that some people has a curious reaction to this difficult moment, instead of getting upset, they laugh and make others laugh.
Laughter, like exercise, increases adrenaline and oxygen flow, releases the endorphins of well-being and accelerates the heart rate. And just like a good workout, this "burst" of energy results in a feeling of relaxation and calm.
But it is more than just a feeling. In fact, studies show how humor can help us be more skilled in solving problems and making decisions. Scans of the cerebral cortex reveal that humor inspires creativity and helps the ability to think critically. "Humor is an essential element of healthy brain development, in both children and adults," says Mary Kay Morrison, author of Using Humor to Maximize Living and founder of the Humor Academy at the Association for Applied Therapeutic Humor.
Furthermore, humor can represent the defense mechanism our bodies need to become more resilient in facing adversity. Being able to laugh during life's challenges - whether it's spilled milk or a pandemic lockdown - can, in fact, help us manage our emotional well-being.
The ability to capture humor in an upsetting situation is an invaluable talent that can alleviate states of depression, loneliness and anger.
In this very moment we see a number of people that are able to do what Morrison suggests, meaning to capture the humorous side of these stressing circumstances. We already wrote about the phenomenon of meme here. Today we want to explore another kind of artistic production.
It's already quite well known the Malaysian POPaganda posters guy, Simon Fong, who reviewed the Mao-era propaganda posters in a humorous way, picturing typical moments of the Shanghai lockdown such as mass testing, shortage of food or lack of bare necessities.
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Another piece that made me laugh is by Haiyang Hou, a Chinese artist who exhibited in Milan and published an article called Hao.
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The Wechat automatic translation, by the way, tries to give some kind of variety to the text, which I find hilarious:
But if I have to chose the best humorous graphic frames, I will go for sure with the "Stay negative" series.
The word is of course a joke between the "stay positive" frase that everyone is used to saying to cheer up, and the fact that during the pandemic is much better to stay, actually, negative (from CoVid).
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This phrase "Stay negative" became a caption for a number of illustrations that captures special moments of Shanghai life that went viral with videos and photos on Chinese social media.
So you can find the "white angel" pointing a guy with a megaphone, the drone fishing, the expensive fruits, a revisited version of green code showing green fences instead, and many others, all depicted with an ironic voice.
The group behind this humorous production is called Ugly, and the purpose of the project is to raise money for charity for people in need because of the lockdown. According to the "manifesto", in fact, Stay negative is "an idea that has taken graphic form but that wants to do good, in practice".
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And then arises the difficult question of whether or not to want the end of the lockdown. Because, according to what they told us, the project is limited to the lockdown period, and they will stop to produce the graphic pictures as soon as we'll be released.
Really?
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Well, let's forget about the fact that sooner or later we'll be deprived of such hilarious graphic cartoons and have a look instead at the legal framework of this kind of creative production.
HFG's partner Fabio Giacopello gives us the answer to the following question: What kind of legal / IP protection such kind of work enjoys?
The graphic works, such as those from the Ugly team or from other artists showed in this article, can enjoy protection under Chinese Law since the moment of creation.
Strictly speaking it is not needed to proceed with registration or recordation with any authority (like - on the contrary - shall be done for trademarks or patents).
What is very important is that author has evidence that he/she is the author and that creation happened at certain date. For this reason (a practical reason) we advise creators to proceed to voluntary recordation of the work of art with Copyright Bureau.
Such recordation ensures that in case needed, if someone abuse the copyright of the author, it is possible and simpler to prove paternity, date of creation and protect the copyright.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
