Looking for Yoko: part four

This blog is part four of four blogs looking at Yoko Ono’s art practice and its connections with GWL

Yoko Ono also speaks about her work as a whisper that changes form as it spreads – rather than being scripted it is the start of a movement – the closest word for it may be a ‘wish’ or ‘hope’.  These two words have been strongly present in our installations at GWL. We worked with Yoko Ono at a distance speaking to the collective of people she has gathered in her New York Studio. Keen to speak to the horrors of the political moment we are facing, and to honour a trajectory of peace activism that is strong in our archive we were happy to relay a message from New York. ‘Think Peace/Act Peace/ Spread Peace/Imagine Peace’ are words quite literally in flight – appearing as a flag on the side of our building. In a culture where fight is suggested as a positive to the negative of flight for Ono these terms are reversed with flight becoming a hope for the future

As companion to our flag, which has long been a place where we open our space to the words and works of feminist icons, we were eager create a space for wishes. It feels apt that we have been able to work with an artist so keen on simply starting something, to create a new garden space, in front of our library to host Wish Tree (2024). Our garden Peace Arbour has been participatory in the widest sense. It hosts 4 wish trees native to Scotland, with one of mixed heritage (which feels appropriate) and it has been imagined in collaboration with Glasgow based artist Reiko Goto Collins – who is also herself one half in a lifetime collaboration with artist Tim Collins. Two months into its conception it has seeded many collaborations with volunteers, local guerrilla gardeners, growing spaces and food co-operatives all contributing to its formation. Surrounding the Wish Trees we have installed a micro forest of sapling fruit trees which we plan to disperse to different locations in the Autumn. In this way in a short space of time an abandoned carpark has become a gathering place for future hopes (many small utopias) and nourishment, it has also become a point of many communications as we seed our ideas with different community organisations and individuals. To close on this new beginning Ono’s sentiment in her Cannes Film Festival text seems appropriate:

‘The job of an artist is not to destroy but to change the value of things. And by doing that, artists can change the world into a Utopia where there is total freedom for everyone. That can be achieved only when there is total communication in the world. Total communication equals peace. That is our aim. That is what artists can do for the world.’

All artworks feature in the book Yoko Ono Music of the Mind – which is available to borrow from GWL and accompanies the current Tate Modern Exhibition of the same name. You can visit Wish Tree alongside other artworks by Reiko Goto Collins and Zana Araki in GWL until Sat 31^st of August.