Lara Chamas | (S)laughter | video still | 2015
Deploying humour to disrupt the aesthetic of authority built into these figures, (S)laughter features a soldier who is laughing and shooting transforms into a clown, and finally a soldier-clown. The titular wordplay comments on misconduct in the military. The juxtaposition of comedy and violence in combination with the invasive laughter mimicking the shooting of a gun implicates the viewer in a tragicomic way.
Lara Chamas is a first-generation Lebanese non-indigenous Australian artist, based in Melbourne. Her practise investigates sub topics of postcolonial and migrant narratives, specifically within the context of her cultural identity. Her practise explores this in relation to contemporary Australian and global society, and current political issues. Currently a completing her Masters by research in Fine Art at Monash University, through the use of narrative and experience documentation, storytelling, oral history / orally transmitted information, and historical texts; her research intends to explore links between narrative theory, cultural practice, current politics, the body as a sculptural, oral and political vessel. Included in this is personal experience and family history, to relate to contemporary issues in Australian society surrounding bi-culturality and assimilation.
https://www.instagram.com/lara_chamas_artist
