Yoko Ono, IMAGINE PEACE

Fifty-three years after Bed-In, Yoko Ono stages a new global intervention by pausing commercial advertisements on the world’s most prominent digital screens to share a message of peace with the global community. An invitation for the world to unite, Ono will broadcast her powerful, universal mantra IMAGINE PEACE every evening at 20:22. 

The public art installation presented by CIRCA in collaboration with Serpentine, will feature local translations of Yoko Ono’s message to the world. IMAGINE PEACE launched 3 March on London’s Piccadilly Lights and is screening across the CIRCA network in London, Los Angeles, Milan, Melbourne, New York, Seoul and Tokyo every evening throughout March 2022. 

IMAGINE PEACE is a concept born from Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s tireless work as peace activists. In March 1969, the couple staged their first Bed-In – a weeklong peace protest from their honeymoon suite at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, boldly communicating their commitment to social justice. This new declaration for peace also marks Ono’s return to London’s Piccadilly Circus, twenty years since she installed a poster carrying the message “Imagine all the people living life in peace” taken from the Lennon-Ono anthem – “Imagine” in March 2002. 

Yoko Ono’s invitation to IMAGINE PEACE has been expressed since the early 2000s through billboards, advertisements, posters and tweets. “Imagining,” said Ono, “is something that we can all do, even when we have different opinions about how to get there.” In 2007, in memory of John Lennon Ono conceived the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER on Viðey Island off the coast of Reykjavík, Iceland, a tower of beaming light, which represents wisdom and love, and acts as a beacon for all those wishing to contribute to world peace. 

MARCH PROGRAMME
IMAGINE PEACE by Yoko Ono
3 – 31 March, CIRCA 20:22

20:22 GMT ➳ London, Piccadilly Lights

20:22 PST ➳ Los Angeles, Pendry West Hollywood

20:22 ACT ➳ Melbourne, Fed Square

20:22 CET ➳ Berlin, Limes, Kurfürstendamm

20:22 CET ➳ Milan, Cadorna Square, EssilorLuxottica

20:22 EST ➳ New York, Luxottica, Times Square

20:22 KST ➳ Seoul, COEX K-Pop Square

Hourly JST ➳ Tokyo, Shibuya Crossing

A limited edition print by Yoko Ono is available to purchase on CIRCA.ART for £100. 100% of proceeds will be donated to the United Nations CERF. 

The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), one of the fastest and most effective ways to ensure that urgent humanitarian assistance, including food, clean water, medicine, education and shelter, reaches people in need whenever and wherever crises strike.

Yoko Ono is an artist, musician, and activist. Born in Tokyo, 1933, Ono was the first woman admitted to the philosophy program at Gakushuin University, Tokyo, where she studied before moving to New York in 1953. By 1960 Ono had become a vital part of the New York avant-garde and the international Fluxus movements. Her boundary-pushing early works include the pioneering feminist performance work Cut Piece, and her book of collected conceptual instructions, Grapefruit, both 1964. By 1968, Ono began collaborating in art, music, and peace activism with her partner and husband John Lennon. As a singer and songwriter, Ono has released fourteen studio albums and eight collaborative albums, including the 1981 Grammy award winning Album of the Year, Double Fantasy. Ono’s artworks and films are widely exhibited internationally and are included numerous prestigious museum and private collections. In 2009 she was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale. Yoko Ono currently lives and works in New York City.