Performance
Table, chairs, shelving, ceramic, glue, tape, scissors, and twine
Viewer participation and collaboration has been and remains central to the tenets of Yoko Ono’s practice. By inviting the viewer to actively become a part of the work, the audience helps to create meaning in each piece. Mend Piece, an installation that has been shown in a number of Ono’s retrospectives, is one of her first and thus seminal of her participation works and was originally created in 1966. The piece is composed of fragments of broken cups placed on a table for the audience to mend with tape, string, glue, or other materials. After mending, the viewer places the cup on shelves in an all-white room, reminiscent of a dream. The metaphor of mending and healing are close. In Ono’s words: ‘As you mend the cup, mending that is needed elsewhere in the Universe gets done as well. Be aware of it as you mend.’
