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Yoko Ono needs your broken dishes!

 

In a new art installation made especially for the Far West project at Arnolfini in Bristol, Yoko Ono has put out a call for people to bring their broken blue and white ceramics in to the gallery, to contribute to an artwork. Visitors are then invited to participate in mending the dishes from the collected pieces and in exchange for their labour they will receive a specially made Yoko Ono unlimited edition.

The project is titled Mend Peace - for Merry England (2008), and Ono has written a Fluxus 'score', or instruction text, to go with the project which asks participants to "Imagine healing your heart as you mend".

The aim is to involve as many people as possible in the communal activity of mending the dishes, and to invite individuals to bring in their own broken dishes to contribute to this group activity. Thus the project will become a kind of 'factory' for resolving conflict, whether on a domestic or global scale.

Ono has asked specifically for blue and white dishes in particular as her concept is to collectively make a 'mosaic of the sky'.

The unlimited edition, which participants will receive, consists of one or two pieces of blue pottery (no red colours), a plastic bag, a small container of milk-based glue and a printed instruction by Yoko, all contained in a cardboard sleeve.

Mend Peace for Merry England is presented as part of Arnolfini's Far West project, which takes place from 28 June - 31 August 2008 in Bristol. Far West is described as a unique shopping experience that transforms Arnolfini from an arts venue into a 'concept store', exploring the consumer and cultural relationships produced by the shifting of the economic centre of the world towards the East. The store includes an ambitious programme of participation projects, off-site presentations, discussion forums, live art and film.

Far West franchise stores will be available at locations including: The Mall Bristol, Broadmead Shopping Centre; Turner Contemporary, Margate; and A Foundation, Liverpool. There will also be a Far West franchise store in Second Life on the People's Music Plaza, a giant floating red flag in artist Cao Fei's virtual metropolis, RMB City.