Yoko Ono, in her first one-woman show in Belgium, presents a series of installations specially conceived for M3 in Antwerp. The seminal New York based artist, a leading figure of the Fluxus movement and Conceptual Art shows a series of installations with which the public are invited to interact.

The piece w a k e, which lends its title to the exhibition, is a conscious word play on the many meanings that word has: besides the act of waking something, or someone, w a k e alludes alternately to a vigil, as in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, and to the turbulence of water as a boat moves through it.

Large maps of Antwerp will be hung on the walls; one group of maps is from the early 1900s, the other is contemporary. People may rubber stamp the words w a k e (and the Dutch and French wekken and reveiller) on these maps. Yoko Ono's concept is that the streets and squares of the city are like the veins and blood vessels of the human body lying beneath and the revolving, waking and vigil-evoking meanings of w a k e can commemorate and process the old pains of the past and help to heal.

The work WE'RE ALL WATER consists if one hundred and eighteen bottles of clear glass, filled with water; each has a label with the name of a person. A small round table with chairs will have a single water-filled bottle on it, without a label: here people may write a name on a card and place it near the bottle as a conceptual addition to WE'RE ALL WATER.

WE'RE ALL WATER is inspired by a concept that Yoko Ono published in 1967, for her exhibition at the Lisson Gallery in London:

"you are water / I'm water / we're all water in different containers / that's why it's so easy to meet / someday we'll evaporate together / but even after the water's gone / we'll probably point out to the containers / and say - that's me there, that one - / we're container minders"

The work WISH TREE is a living tree in which people can hang written wishes, which will eventually be incorporated into Yoko Ono's Tower of Peace, which she is building in Iceland. Postcards and posters of her work OPEN WINDOW and the film piece ONOCHORD will further emphasise the interactive nature of the exhibition, spreading it into the city and beyond.

A recent work titled Pieces of Sky consists of eleven World War II era German army helmets that are suspended from the ceiling; they each contain pieces of "sky", which the public may take.

wake yoko ono
M3 - Galerie Gianluca Ranzi, Antwerpen, Belgium
June 15th - July 15th 2006

• Photos of Yoko Ono during the opening and of the exhibition

Pieces of Sky by Yoko Ono © Galerie Davide Di Maggio