Yoko Ono’s Refugee Boat

 

 

While the soul searching about the week’s far right riots in Britain grinds on, responses play themselves out via the various outlets of ‘legacy’ and social media. An article by Zarah Sultana in the Guardian this morning (Friday 9th August) points out that racism, xenophobia and Islamaphobia are not a ground-up swelling of fear and resentment from those who have been groomed by the Daily Mail, Nigel Farage or ‘Tommy Robinson’, directing their operations from the safety of 5-star hotels or million-pound hideaways from the turbulence on the streets. The steady drip of racism and hostility towards refugees in present-day Britain has come over the last ten years from the political establishment. This means you David Cameron, Priti Patel, Ed Balls, Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak – the list of high-profile agents provocateur wielding power over the lives of those fighting for their freedom and basic human dignity is both alarming and depressing. It’s not the people in the small boats who are the real threat, it’s those in their private jets.

 

55 years ago a Japanese artist named Yoko Ono became the most reviled woman in Britain. Through her relationship with John Lennon she was blamed for the disintegration of the Beatles. Hatred and racism saw her lampooned in mainstream media as ugly, domineering and manipulative or a ‘witch’. Yet now, in 2024, she is the subject of an 8-month retrospective of her extraordinary legacy as artist and political activist at the Tate Modern’s Blavatnik building. 

 

One of the most striking exhibits in her show is the Refugee Room. An impressive push-back against racism and Islamaphobia has been evident on Britain’s streets over the last week, a counter-offensive to the riots fomented by far right populist agitation. Fear and loathing ina Babylon indeed. Ono’s response to the crisis surrounding the ‘small boats’ carrying economic and political refugees from persecution and repression to putative safety in Europe has been to place a small wooden boat in the centre of a room in which everything – the walls, ceiling, floor, the boat itself was painted John-and-Yoko white. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to collaborate in the work by decorating the space with drawings and graffiti, using predominantly blue felt and acrylic pens, that express their sentiments regarding the ‘migrant crisis’. The result is an outpouring of solidarity expressed through art. While confrontations on the streets are potentially taking the game to the far-right fuckwits’ home territory, art is something far more subtle and mercurial. Institutional philistinism is one of the central tenets of the right, both near and far, going all the way back to Hitler’s ‘degenerate art’ of the mid-late 1930s, and finding expression in the UK through the gradual erosion of the arts in schools and the denigration of ‘mickey mouse’ degrees – ie, in the arts and humanities – by the ignorance and hostility of recent Tory administrations. 

 

The arts have been a powerful force against reactionary and repressive regimes in this country throughout most of the 71 years of my lifetime. The art and continuing activism of a woman once described as the most hated woman in Britain carries on in that tradition. 

 

Yoko Ono’s show Music of the Mind continues at Tate Modern till September 1st

 

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Keith Rodway

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2 Responses to Yoko Ono’s Refugee Boat

    1. Thank you Keith for telling us about this exhibition. The offering of art as voice is our most peaceful protest.

      Comment by Tracey Chippendale-Gammell on 11 August, 2024 at 6:47 am
    2. I needed this today. Lifelong fan of Yoko (and I.T) and this is amongst her most powerful pieces. Love it

      Comment by Andy Swapp on 15 August, 2024 at 8:44 am

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