Yoko Ono's OWS Wish Tree for Zuccotti Park
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:40AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A short press conference will be held at Zuccotti park in Lower Manhattan on Saturday, January 14, 2011 at 1PM. Members of the OWS Arts & Culture & Occupy With Art groups will be distributing copies of an artwork that Ms. Ono created specially for OWS, and will be available to answer questions about to the project.
Ono’s participatory project Wish Tree originated in 1981 following John Lennon’s passing. It has since been re-imagined in various locations around the world, where people have been invited to write their personal wishes for peace and tie them to a tree branch.
In accordance with the raid of Zuccotti Park, and its subsequent closure, and the ubiquitous nature of the Occupy movement, Ono has broadened the project. So now instead of literally placing wishes in the trees, she has made a postcard edition of 10,000 with written instructions to be distributed nationally by Occupy Wall Street groups.
As a movement sparked by imagination, Wish Tree for Zuccotti Park encourages a continued re-imagination of OWS and the world we live in.
Make a wish to any tree, in any occupation.
About the Wish Tree project:
In Ono’s words (from http://imaginepeacetower.com):
“As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people’s wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar.
All My Works are a Form of Wishing."
Wishes can also be sent directly to Ono’s website and will be kept private. Ono assembles the wishes into another artwork, Imagine Peace Tower, based in Iceland.
Where: Zuccotti Park, Lower Manhattan – Broadway and Liberty Street
When: Sat. Jan. 14, 2012 1:00pm
Info: Project website: http://imaginepeacetower.com/yoko-onos-wish-trees
Twitter ID: #IPTower
OWS Occupy With Art group: http://www.occupywithart.com/
Contacts:
Chris Cobb – occupypublishing@yahoo.com
Yaelle Amir- contact@yaelleamir.com
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Report-back on Saturday's [#J14] Yoko Ono/OWS Wish Tree Gathering at Liberty Square
[PRESS COVERAGE Sample]:
Photo: Sam Levin
- Village Voice: "Yoko Ono (Not Present) Promotes Peace at Zuccotti, Occupiers Proceed to Drop 'Dead'" by Sam Levin
- Flavorwire: "Yoko Ono Brings Her ‘Wish Tree’ Project to Occupy Wall Street" by Caroline Stanley
- Big Think: "How Yoko Ono Is Still Giving Peace a Chance" by Bob Duggan
[Morgan's Report]:
I thought today was really rather wonderful and wanted to send appreciation to everyone who was there…it started to feel like a community again.
Occupy Yoga was terrific (and kept us warm), the Occuponics rocked (thanks all!), it was nice to get some [Yoko Ono] postcards to send to people and be part of the Wish Tree (great to be there in tandem with that group [Occupy with Art]!) there were some testimonials from occupiers, what I thought was a really interesting sketch for a “stepping stone to the future” choreographic/interactive/installation project, the die-in was kinda awesome, and I hope there were poets – I had to leave with a student and couldn’t stay the whole time so was sad to miss the poetry compost I hope did happen. And I heard Kitchen had some yummy chicken. Whom/what did I leave out?
Please let me know what else was going on – and would love to hear thoughts and suggestions for more events.
We are still hoping that performative things can happen from noon to two during the week for the lunch time crowd – maybe focused on supporting outreach? And still longing for the return of the People Staged! Fateh is saying they might try to do Occupy Yoga on the weekends (weather permitting) so please let OccupyCurveball (Re-Occupy with Culture&Ideas) know any ideas you might have.
There is really room for many many things that can serve a lot of needs here.
Our focus is now switching to supporting the events for MLK/Occupy the Dream and J17 Occupy Congress…but let’s talk about what can happen next week!
MorganJen