Choosing to See Things in A Specific Way: Call for Examples of Gallows Humour

Part of the UFO : Dark Skies event. Thanks to the Unidentified Facility team for the opportunity to share ideas and collaborate. We will close out the call for the Anthology of Gallows Humour 2026 Edition in April 2026.

Modern western thought attributes current approaches to gallows humour with the surrealists, who were working with these ideas as early as the 1920s and whose publication Anthologie L'Humour Noir (Anthology of Black Humour) was published in 1940. 

Gallows humour is a device that artists and designers can activate.
It leans on disparity between content and form.

When broken down as an artistic process, gallows humour:
—has awareness of its circumstances
—builds on previous established artistic context
—makes use of the ridiculous
As a way to control perspective.

Gallows humour is a way to rewrite the narrative.

It is not necessarily light-hearted, funny, amusing; it doesn’t shy away from discomfort. It’s a clearing mechanism, a way to both acknowledge and agitate intolerable circumstances.

The final thing I’m going to mention about gallows humour is the humanity. The joke isn’t “look how shocking I am” It’s more “this is awful—and I’m still here, I’m alive, and I am choosing to see things in a specific way.”