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Yoko Ono receives lifetime achievement award from Dublin Biennial for contribution to art, music and campaigning
Fri 22 Jun 2012

Yoko Ono: honoured in Dublin

by The Irish Times

Yoko Ono spoke of her late husband John Lennon’s love of Ireland yesterday as she received her lifetime achievement award for her contribution to the worlds of art, music and campaigning, writes Aishling Phelan.

‘‘John, who sometimes considered himself 100 per cent Irish, would have loved to see me honoured in this way by the city he loved,” she said at Dublin’s Mansion House. “When he was born, his mother was English and his father was Irish and he didn’t have too much opportunity to see his father, so he had this yearning for being Irish. In a way it was sad because he was always talking about that, you know.”

The Japanese artist and peace activist was honoured as part of the Dublin Biennial Pop-Up contemporary art exhibition that is running in the Point Village until Sunday next.

Her Wish Tree for Ireland has been at the heart of the exhibition. The wishes of 55 artists will be sent to The Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland where a column of more than a million wishes now feature.

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Lennon ‘considered himself Irish’

Yoko Ono has revealed her late Beatle husband considered himself Irish.
She told how John Lennon loved Dublin as she received a lifetime achievement award in the Irish capital for her art and peace activism.

The award, a traditional Irish bogwood sculpture by Kieran Higgins, was presented by Dublin Biennial, an independent pop-up

“I am very honoured to return to Dublin to be part of the first ever Dublin Biennial and to receive this lifetime achievement award,” said 79-year-old Yoko. “John, who sometimes considered himself 100% Irish, would have loved to see me honoured in this way by the city he loved.”

Ono, an avant-garde artist, rose to fame in the 1960s when she got into a relationship with and married Lennon.

An interactive installation by her – Wish Tree for Ireland – has become one of the main attractions at the inaugural Dublin Biennial Pop-Up art exhibition at the Point Village, running until Sunday.

The 8ft tall living maple acer tree is positioned against a white background with the Yoko Imagine Peace insignia.

The work asks viewers to make a wish, write it down on a piece of paper, fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree, until the branches are covered with wishes. It will be transferred to the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland as part of her 1,000,000 wishes project.

Maggie Magee, of Dublin Biennial, said Yoko’s art and activism invite everyone to hope and to wish and to dream of the world as a more beautiful place. “We are honoured to commemorate her Lifetime of Achievement, in recognition of the integrity of her artistic imagination, the dignity of her achievements and the bravery of her dreams,” she added.

Dublin Lord Mayor Andrew Montague said he was privileged to present Yoko with the award at the Mansion House. “Her achievements in the worlds of art, music and as a peace activist make her an inspiration to us all,” he added. “Dublin is proud to be honouring her as part of the inaugural Dublin Biennial.”

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Yoko Ono was in Dublin today to receive her lifetime achievement award at the inaugural Dublin Biennial exhibition. Here she is with five-year-old Ashlee Byrne from Blanchardstown:

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John and I had special connection to Ireland, says Yoko

By Allison Bray, Independent Woman

YOKO Ono last night revealed her special affinity with Ireland — the spiritual home of her late husband John Lennon.

Speaking during a visit to her ‘Wish Tree for Ireland’ art installation at the inaugural Dublin Biennial Exhibition at the Point Village, the 79-year-old conceptual artist revealed there is “a special connection between Ireland and me”.

“My husband was 100% Irish. That’s what he used to say,” she said.

Ireland also holds special memories for her of when John first invited her to visit here as his wife-to-be, back in the 1960s, she added. “Ireland was sort of like an auntie or a mother that he wanted to show me,” she said.

Honoured

Yoko said she was honoured after being given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Dublin Biennial Exhibition yesterday to recognise her accomplishments in the worlds of art, music and as a peace activist.

“John would have loved to see me honoured in this way by the city he loved,” she said, of her late husband who was assassinated by Mark Chapman in New York in 1980.

Earlier, a traditional Irish bogwood sculpture by Kieran Higgins was presented to Yoko at a ceremony at Dublin’s Mansion House.

Yoko was later presented a peace lily by brave leukemia survivor Ashlee Byrne (5) as an ambassador for the Make A Wish Foundation charity.

The junior infants pupil from the Sacred Heart School in Huntstown, Dublin, was the first person to adorn Yoko’s installation with a simple handwritten wish “to give people that have no food some food”.

Yoko hugged the little girl as they both flashed peace signs after she placed her own special wish “to the people of Ireland” on the eight-foot high maple acer tree.

“I wish the people of Ireland to have seven fortunes and eight treasures,” she said of her take on a Japanese proverb.

The installation aims to collect a million handwritten wishes that will be exhibited later at the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland.