The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Arts October 13, 2007

Yoko Ono Imagines Peace

Most Obies have imagined peace at some point, some with sincerity and others perhaps just for a good laugh. But Yoko Ono has kept this dream close to her heart for quite some time now. And on Tuesday, Oct. 9, she unveiled the Imagine Peace Tower on the birthday of her late husband, John Lennon, 27 years after his death.

“This is something that we spoke about 40 years ago,” Ono told the Associated Press last week. “Our dream is finally coming true.”

The tower, a stories-tall beam of light, stands in Reykjavik, Iceland. It originates from a wishing well, on which are inscribed the words “imagine peace” in 24 languages.

“I was collecting wishes for world peace, of course,” Ono told the AP. “I thought: ‘I have to put them in a tower or something&hellip;a peace tower.’”

Ono plans to have the tower lit annually between October 9 and December 8 (the anniversary of Lennon’s death), so that it “[has] the feeling of the shortness of life, but the light is eternal.”

Since 1981, Ono has collected many written wishes for peace through a “wish trees” installation that she has set up in locations worldwide. Visitors to the exhibit write their own wishes for peace and tie them to trees. Ono has collected about 495,000 so far, according to www.msnbc.msm.com. She plans to bury the wishes in “capsules” around the tower, with each  one topped by a tree. Ono hopes that the site will one day look like a forest.

Now that the tower has been unveiled, wishes may be sent by mail or submitted online at www.imaginepeace.com, an interactive site where one can do everything from submit a wish to watch YouTube videos of Ono in action.

Ono chose Iceland because it is “a very eco-friendly country,” due to the fact that it relies on geothermal energy. It also has a sort of magical quality for her.

“This is the biggest birthday present I gave to John,” Ono told the AP. “He’s very, very happy about it, I know.”


 
 
   

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