Omikuji or Tanabata?
Internationally celebrated artist Yoko Ono will present a major installation of her participatory work, Wish Trees, in the large central courtyard at One Colorado from August 2 through November 9, 2008. The installation will consist of a number of living trees selected by the artist, and which are identified with the environment or history of Southern California. Visitors are invited to write their wishes on pieces of paper and hang them on the tree branches. Public access to Ono’s art installation and the One Colorado Courtyard is free.
Wishes from Pasadena will be joined with wishes from all over the world and placed in specially constructed capsules to be buried in the area surrounding Yoko Ono’s public art project in memory of John Lennon, the Imagine Peace Tower on Videy Island, off the coast of Reykjavík, Iceland.
Yoko Ono’s influence for this piece is connected to her early childhood experiences in Japan: “As a child, I used to go to a temple and buy a printed paper wish sold at the temple and tie it around the branch of a bush. Bushes in temple courtyards were always filled with people’s wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar,” she said.
The Wish Trees have been a part of several prominent exhibitions worldwide by Yoko Ono since the 1990s. Instructions are simple:
WISH PIECE -- y.o. ‘96
Make a wish.
Write it down on a piece of paper.
Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree.
Ask your friends to do the same.
Keep wishing
Until the branches are covered with wishes.
The act of wishing is described by Ono as a “collective prayer.” Some wishes are deeply personal; some represent wishes for all humankind.
It sounds like what you do to an omikuji at a temple, but looks like a non-colorful tanzaku for Tanabata. And for omikuji, it's kinda confusing what the 'rule' is - whether you tie a bad one so you don't leave the temple with it; or if you tie a good one to make sure it comes true. *shrug* And for Tanabata, the standard wish is for neat handwriting and better sewing, but I hear in Sendai they add kamigoromo, orizuru, kinchaku, toami, kuzukago and fukinagashi, tied to bamboo. And kusudama!
I'm confused, but I might go just because it's a local happening.
24 East Union Street
Pasadena, California 91103
http://www.onecolorado.com/fun_yokoono.php