Tag: stones

For the project “THREE STONES” (2004) Antti Laitinen dug a hole and collected the stones he found after seven minutes of digging, seven hours and seven days. For “WALK THE LINE” (2005-ongoing) the artist printed his portrait on various maps and then walked along the lines of his face. The GPS system he carries along the way records his journey, drawing the path he walked. Laitinen performed this project in Helsinki, Kuopio, Jyväskylä, Luukkaa and Oulunkylä Forests (Finland), Kielder Forest, Newcastle, Pontburn Woods (UK), Warsaw, Krakow (Poland) and Athens (Greece) and Madrid (Spain). 

Yoko Ono, Stone Piece, from The Riverbed, 2015

Since the early 1960s, audience participation has been a crucial aspect of Ono’s work. To make a village is a political gesture, as well as a formal one. Audience participation is key to completing the THE RIVERBED through everyday action coupled with contemplation; they are collaborators with the artist, similar to the collaboration between the artist and the two galleries. Additionally, it is significant to Ono that all three “principals”— the artist and two gallery leaders—are female; the support and participation of women in power is one of Ono’s longstanding concerns.

Conceived as two room-sized installations shown in two spaces—a whole in two parts— visitors are encouraged, via instructions, to visit both spaces in order to experience and fully understand THE RIVERBED. Both galleries will have a pile of large river stones that Ono has selected and gathered. She will inscribe the words like remember, dream, and wish on the stones, which have been honed and shaped by water over time. Visitors may pick up a stone and hold it in their lap, concentrating on the word and letting go of their anger or fear, transforming the stone into an emotional object to be placed upon the pile of stones in the center of the room.