Yoko Ono has shared a new series of public artworks tackling the climate crisis, to mark Earth Day (April 22). Consisting of black text on a white background, the large-scale billboards simply declare: “I Love You Earth.”
In partnership with Serpentine Galleries, the new billboards have been installed in cities across the UK, including London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Manchester. The message also refers to Ono’s song of the same name on the 1985 album Starpeace, which includes the lyrics: “I love you, earth, you are beautiful / I love the way you are / I know I never said it to you / But I wanna say it now.”
“There are so many of us in the world who are now awakened, ready to act to save our world,” the artist says in a statement posted to Instagram (see below). “So let’s work together to save this planet. Together. That’s how we will change the world. We change, and the world changes.”
“Have trust in what you can do. Have trust in how fast we can change our world for the better. Why? Because we have to. Believe that we are one and together we will make it. Love is what connects all lives on Earth.”
Last week (April 15), Yoko Ono also shared her participatory artwork Wish Tree for Washington, DC online for the first time. Situated at the city’s Hirshhorn Museum, the dogwood invites people to tie their hopes and dreams to its branches in the summer months, but is currently closed for in-person visits due to coronavirus restrictions.
Prior to that, she hung hopeful banners across the front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Reading “DREAM” and “TOGETHER”, the black and white texts were intended to communicate a message of hope and solidarity to the people of New York.