The Hahaha Institute

The Artistic Intervention Program for Professional Clowns is the Institute's key action and is carried out by about 10 artists who, in pairs or trios, follow the routine of visits to pediatric and geriatric wards of hospitals in the SUS Network, Institutional Shelter Units (UAI's), and Long Stay Institutions for the Elderly (ILPIs) in Minas Gerais. The unique relationship built, day after day, occurs because there is a continuity that strengthens bonds and brings effective results, whether in hospitals or institutional care. The clowns make visits twice a week, continuously, and when they shoot at the entrance of each wing, room, corridor or institution, they transform the environment, subvert the logic of space, take a universe of playfulness and possibilities so that for a few moments a bed may become a spaceship; a runner turns into a racetrack; the serum carriers that accompany hospitalized patients can be wands of superpowers; or even being discharged from a hospital turns into a grand planned escape.

The project Laughter for everyone! of the HAHAHA Institute, which seeks to promote access to culture, art and citizenship for the elderly public in ILPIs and hospitals through artistic interventions, needed to reinvent itself during the Covid-19 pandemic. Such an encouraging work and of great relevance for a population already fragile and/or in a difficult time due to the onset of some disease needed to be rethought. For 8 years Instituto HAHAHA has been working bringing joy, laughter and providing a rich exchange of experiences between the actors involved in person in hospitals and ILPIs. The moment was of great challenge, but Instituto HAHAHA continues to bring joy, entertainment and culture to the elderly and in hospital, also in a virtual way. They provide this with the possibility of serving not only the elderly population, in some channels it is available to the entire population, helping to reduce the damage caused by social isolation and also social and health vulnerabilities.